Cleveland school aiming to teach inner-city kids urban farming with pet chickens

“I enjoy playing [with] the chickens outside, taking care of them and learning what makes chickens great,” said Hughes.

By Maya Lockett
News5Cleveland
Mar 1, 2024

Excerpt:

At some schools, the class pet may be a hamster or a lizard, but a second-grade class at Saint Adalbert Catholic School is taking a different approach.

They currently have three pet chickens in the classroom and four full-grown chickens in a coop outside.

“I was very concerned it would be a distraction for the students, but it turned out to be the opposite. They were a complement to our classroom because the children took on the empathy role. They take care of them, they nurture them, and it showed them a whole different way of caring for things as well as caring for our environment,” said second-grade teacher Melissa Hennigan.

Hennigan started the project over a year ago when these students were in the first grade, allowing them to see the chickens start off as eggs and grow into what they are today.

“We candled them while they were in the incubator, we were able to candle them to see if they were viable eggs. The students get to chart how many we thought we’re going to hatch, and then we did have some hatch and then unfortunately a couple of them just didn’t make it. So, we had to have a lesson about what happens with that,” said Hennigan.

Now, as a second grader, Parker Hughes has grown very fond of the chickens; Principal Jamie Smith said he visits her office often with a pet chicken.

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