School Garden Chicken Project!

Founded seven years ago, the Columbia Secondary School Community Garden aims to engage students in becoming part of their food system by growing organic produce for use in the school cafeteria, composting food waste on-site, and engaging in garden-to-table classes.  We recently adopted a group of four baby chickens from EarthMatter, a compost education program with whom we have collaborated in the past.  The chicks' time in the classroom was met with much enthusiasm from students and we have since moved our pullets (adolescent hens) to a makeshift coop in the school garden, constructed by a team of parents, teachers, and students over an existing raised bed.  As winter is fast approaching, this project aims to fund a winterized chicken coop solution until we can further fundraise for a student-designed permanent coop.  Keeping the chickens year-round will allow us to further model our garden space on a sustainable ecosystem. 

1. Purchase chicken coop.

2. Engage students in building and setting up the coop.

3. Continue to build capacity of chicken caretakers through chicken trainings and chicken care garden hours.

4. Engage students in planning for the future of the chickens, writing about chickens, researching chickens, and caring for chickens!

We aim to educate students, families, and the community on sustainable food systems by modeling one in our school garden.  The chickens provide an important learning opportunity both in terms of caring for livestock and further closing the "ecological loop" of the garden.  Eventually, the chickens will also provide eggs for the garden community.