AP Environmental Science students in Bryan Beck’s class saw nature at work in the classroom Wednesday as one of the class pet turtles, Redhawk, gave birth to several eggs in the middle of class.

“We put her on land, she digs a hole, she lays between 2 and 20 eggs and then she covers the whole up and wanders off,” Beck said. “It takes 50-ish days for them to hatch, but they have to be fertilized first, which we don’t know if they are fertilized.”

Beck plans to see whether or not the eggs actually contain unborn turtles.

“What’s going to happen is I am going to dig them up and I am going to look at them under a light and see if there are any baby turtles in there,” Beck said. “If there is I will put them in an incubator so they can incubate.”

For students in the class, it was a camera-worthy experience.

“The turtle was shaking, so we all walked over there and we figured that she was about to lay the eggs,” junior Kendall Pulaski said. “We were all watching and one came out, and then there was a few more that came after that.”