ABC 57 News had the chance to learn about sustainable living at the Greene Intermediate Center in South Bend for this week’s “Cool Schools.”

The principal, Mandy Davis, told us that, “the focus on the environment and sustainability, and how we grow food, and then the agricultural piece, it’s really a program that has sprung up out of a niche that we saw there was an exciting need for.”

Greene has spent the last three years creating and tweaking an environmental curriculum, giving each grade its own focus. The 7th graders are focused on learning about food, which is why they have 8 chickens roaming around their school’s squad.

Vince Gresham, the teacher in charge of caring for the chickens, told us “these chickens were born in March and we raised them from tiny little chicks in our classroom and once they were 14-16 weeks old we brought them out to this area.”

Now that the chickens have moved from their student built incubator, to their student built chicken coop, students like Loice Greer, say caring for them is a lot easier.

“When they are out here it’s a lot easier to take care of them because we don’t have to clean up the poop as much.”

And Davis tells us experiences like this have many of these students on their way to environmental careers.

“They can take classes at South Bend New Tech and Riley in Environmental Sciences and then we’ve got a great partnership going with Indiana University South Bend and their sustainability program and a lot of our kids, if they decide this is the career path for them, they can start at Greene and go all the way.”