NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
YODER, Kan. — Yoder Charter School is continuing to expand its agricultural projects for its K-8 students in Haven USD 312.
"We finished up last year piloting our agricultural program at Yoder Charter and had our meat chickens, with a very well attended chicken dinner," said principal Shannon Atherton. "We have started this semester, this school year, with pigs. We've got a couple of pigs on the grounds. We got them last week. They're just frolicking around and kids are loving it and really starting to do some learning about pigs."
The school is also going to continue to work with chickens.
"We'll do some egg layers," Atherton said. "We've got a chicken coop and we just actually got our hands on a trailer. We'll modify that to make a coop out of, that we can have kind of a mobile coop around our back area and then we'll have some meat chickens here in the spring, as well, just like we did last year."
Project based learning for kids is an opportunity the community of Yoder has embraced.
"The root of it is problem solving," Atherton said. "Just yesterday, I went out to the pig shelter and back behind it, there was some loose ground and they're starting to root underneath and I could see, kind of a hoof coming out underneath there. I went to the sixth, seventh and eighth graders and I said, hey, we need to problem solve how to make sure these pigs don't get out."
Yoder Engineered Structures worked with students to build the shelter, and a Corteva Agriscience grant is being put to work, as students will be taking care of and learning about the two pigs through March.