RACINE — Inside the courtyard at Horlick High School, students can be found tending to chickens as part of the Horlick Harvesters program.
"They definitely love doing what they do with the chickens," said Horlick High School science teacher Tom Pfeiffer.
Pfeiffer helped start the program after noticing the courtyard outside his classroom wasn't being used.
"My room is attached to this courtyard, and it was underutilized," Pfeiffer said.
It began with raised garden beds before expanding to include chickens. Students across multiple disciplines are now involved in the work related to the school's chickens.
Pfeiffer said the students involved range "from construction students, to marketing students, to culinary arts."
Construction students helped build the garden beds and are intending to construct a fence for the chickens. The culinary class cooks with eggs produced by the chickens. Marketing students have developed a brand around the program. Eggs are also sold to teachers and students to help financially support it.
"There is a hand in everything that is going on here and what you see," Pfeiffer said.
He said the program fills an important gap for students in the community.
"We are in the middle of Racine. We're basically in a food desert," Pfeiffer said.
For many students, the program is an opportunity to grasp where their food comes from. Student Milo Lingo said that disconnect is common.
"A lot of the time, people don't understand where their food comes from," said Lingo, who checks on the chickens every morning and visits them during free periods.
Fellow student Joseph Santiago agreed, saying the process to get food from the farm to a meal was something he was not familiar with prior to his experiences at Horlick.
"No, not at all," Santiago said.
Santiago said he visits the chickens at least once a week, typically on Fridays, to "check up on the eggs, check on the chickens, check on their food."
Student Antonio Hernandez said his time learning about the chickens has been eye-opening.
"That was really new to me," Hernandez said. "It was actually really fun, getting to understand more about life itself with plants and animals."
Educators say the program is about more than chickens and food systems — it is also an opportunity for students to feel engaged.
"Something like this really helps excite a lot of our students," Pfeiffer said.
He said it's not uncommon to see students in other classrooms looking into the courtyard with curiosity about the chickens.
"I think as a whole we're going to see that excitement within the school itself in the next couple of years," Pfieffer said.
Pfeiffer has also partnered with the school's Competency-Based Credit Recovery Program, an alternative learning path for students who are credit deficient.
Competency-Based Credit Recovery teacher Kim LaMacchia said the students in the program are now more integrated into Horlick High School than they were before the urban farm program began.
She also emphasized the importance of students being exposed to something unfamiliar and uncomfortable.
One student in the program told TMJ4's Lauren Sklba that having the opportunity to work with and responsibility to care for the chickens is motivation.
It's a posture Pfeiffer has also observed.
"It's kind of interesting to see that there's a motivation of, you know, students that are like, 'Hey, I need to be in school, in class, for the chickens,'" Pfeiffer said.
The students say the experience has had a lasting impact.
"In the future, I actually hope to have some animals," Santiago said.
"I personally want to get chickens myself," Lingo said.
Hernandez said the program expanded his ambitions even further.
"I want chickens, but I mostly want goats now," Hernandez said. "Goats are like the new, next level that I want to see, and fish too."
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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