Grant to advance agricultural education at Bald Eagle Area High School
By the end of the school year, a classroom at Bald Eagle Area High School could turn into a chicken-processing facility, colloquially known as a slaughterhouse.
It’s part of a larger sustainable agriculture school project that will start this year. The project is possible thanks to a $5,000 grant from the National Farm to School Network.
District Director of Curriculum and Instruction Tracy Boone said 100 Seed Change mini-grants were awarded to schools in Kentucky, Louisiana and Pennsylvania to enhance agriculture education activities at schools.
District administration applied for the grant at the end of last school year, and it was accepted July 24. On Tuesday, the district received the check, Boone said.
“The proposal we submitted looked across multi-content areas that would allow us to plant our own corn and raise our own hens, and provide agricultural education to our students that lasts beyond just this year,” Boone said. “From kindergarten on up, it’s allowing students to be hands-on through the whole process.”
Agriculture education teacher Todd Biddle said he’s already planning class curriculum that includes the animal science, agriculture construction and advanced woodworking classes, in addition to the FFA program.
“The purpose of the grant is to encourage schools raising some of their own food and trying to teach sustainable agriculture,” Biddle said. “There are a lot of resources that go into shipping food all over the world, and it’s a system we developed, but is not economical. The goal for a lot of schools it to have a garden, but the challenge there is that kids aren’t in school when the produce is ready, and there are no kids to eat or harvest it.”
Biddle said he developed a model that engages the students to raise their own chickens, grow their own corn, make their own food and then sell it for profits that will benefit the program once the grant money runs out.
“If you look at research, one of the largest industries is poultry, and if you look at food habits of people, they’re eating chicken,” Biddle said.
By March, the district should receive about 40 chickens that grow to a processed-size bird within six weeks, Biddle said.
The idea is to first work with kindergarteners and teach them embryology until the birds hatch.
Older students will then help maintain the chickens in a barn built by students at the high school grounds near the football stadium. Biddle said it will be built as big as two to three square feet per chicken.
“I think it will be around May when they process them and learn the humane way to process,” Biddle said. “They will kill, de-feather and gut them, cut up the carcass and put that meat in a freezer for use later.”
Biddle said pending approval from inspectors, all that will be done in a classroom at Bald Eagle Area High School.
“If we look at the production of food 100 years ago and compare it to now, it would have taken months,” Biddle said. “Now it’s only weeks.”
By the end of the school year, students will also grow corn on a one-acre plot of district land near Wingate Elementary School.
By the beginning of the 2016-17 school year corn will be ready for use and used in chicken corn chowder, Biddle said.
“Part of the grant is long-term farming and how you can be self-supporting,” Biddle said. “It gives us the resources when we don’t have grant money.”
Because of the nature of the project, Biddle said students are also learning how to work with government officials and departments including the Department of Agriculture.
“There is a lot of government regulation in agriculture,” Biddle said. “We’re working directly with them, and they can shut us down at any time.”
Part of class curriculum includes teaching students restriction and legal aspects of farming and animal welfare.
“They’re doing all of this with the bird’s best interest in mind,” Biddle said. “These are responsible practices.”
But it also keeps up with a current trend where people want to know where their food is coming from.
“It’s a big phase right now,” Biddle said. “People want fresh product because they’re concerned where their food comes from. With a project like this, they know where their food comes from, how it’s processed and have total control how their food is processed.”
Students and their parents have been notified about the project.
Biddle said it’s getting a lot of support from both parties.
“We talked to students, but even more so, we’ve been in contact with parents who have given us support,” Biddle said. “It’s a true farm-like experience, and it’s one of the things we can give to kids to learn the skills for an ag career. We have this land and the resources, so why not take advantage of that?”
Training for teachers will begin Oct. 1 at Panorama Village Elementary School in College Township.
This story was originally published September 11, 2015 at 6:08 PM with the headline "Grant to advance agricultural education at Bald Eagle Area High School ."