Growing Augusta: Arts, Agriculture & Agency has launched AgLab: #ChickEdition, a new high school adaptation of Sunshine Farms’ popular chick hatching project. The pilot program at Cross Creek High School builds on the original elementary model by aligning it with Georgia’s Basic Agriculture (02.47100) curriculum and emphasizing agribusiness, biosecurity, and data-driven farm management.
The project is led by Karen Gordon, director of Growing Augusta. She designed and coordinated the AgLab @ Cross Creek: #ChickEdition pilot and currently serves as a long-term substitute teacher for agriculture classes at Cross Creek High School under educator Stacey Henderson.
Gordon has worked in agriculture, food systems, and community-based education since 2019, becoming more directly involved in urban agriculture in 2022. A native of Waynesboro, Georgia, now living in Hephzibah, she said her work focuses on making agriculture accessible to those who may not come from traditional farm backgrounds. As director of Growing Augusta, she oversees community food programs, student learning initiatives, and partnerships that connect agriculture, the arts, and workforce development throughout the CSRA.
“Sunshine Farms inspired us,” Gordon said. “We’ve adapted it for high school, focusing on agribusiness results. Students handle inputs, track quality, assess margins, and share their findings, similar to a startup in the farm-to-food process.”
Gordon said she was inspired to bring Sunshine Farms’ project to a high school level after a colleague shared a flyer for the program.
“I saw an opportunity to level it up for high school by tying it directly to current events around food access and urban agriculture,” she said. “After talking with local farmers, it became clear that state standards don’t currently include urban agriculture, so we developed a project that would check that box.”
The Cross Creek pilot includes about 100 students, primarily ninth and tenth graders, enrolled in introductory agriculture courses. Students manage incubator temperature and humidity over the 21-day hatch cycle, candle eggs to observe development, and practice sanitation and humane handling procedures. They also complete daily logs, calculate the cost of goods sold, track yield and break-even points, and prepare short investor-style presentations to connect biological science with business concepts.
AgLab: #ChickEdition aligns with Georgia’s basic agriculture standards in several areas, including employability and work habits, recordkeeping and Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) documentation, academic foundations in life science and agricultural literacy, lab systems and safety, and problem solving through data analysis and troubleshooting. Gordon said the goal is for students to gain both technical and business skills while meeting course expectations.
The project places a strong emphasis on community engagement, partnering with local collaborators to bolster its initiative. They include M. Latrell Farms, Grow With Joy, Ladale Hayes, Hephzibah High School Agriculture Education Instructor / FFA Advisor, and Black Farm Street. M. Latrell Farms contributes by donating hatching eggs and providing a home for any unadopted chicks. Additionally, the Augusta Agribusiness Committee actively participates in Cross Creek’s Community Advisory Council.
A highlight of the project is the “Baby Chick Baby Shower,” sponsored by The Stop Food Truck, where students showcase their work and explore food entrepreneurship concepts with the community.
“Students aren’t just watching eggs hatch—they’re meeting real course objectives while doing it,” Gordon said. “We’re running three different cohorts so students can track data across multiple hatches. They’re also preparing kits for other schools to use in the spring.”
Parents of students participating in the pilot have also praised the project’s impact. Stephanie Black, mother of senior student Haley Wright, said the experience has brought excitement back into her daughter’s final year in the agriculture program.
“Haley has really enjoyed having the chicks in the classroom and watching them go from the incubator to being born,” Black said. “She’s taken agriculture all four years, and with her regular teacher out due to illness, having the chicks in class has helped her stay engaged. We have chicks and ducks at home, but this is the first time she’s seen them hatch in real time.”
Black said she believes the project benefits all students, not just those already familiar with animals.
“It gives kids who have never been around anything like this the chance to experience it,” she said. “It can teach compassion and responsibility. I really hope they keep this program in the future.”
Wright said the hands-on nature of the project was the highlight of her final year.
“I believe that the most interesting part of participating in the AgLab was being able to watch the chicks actually hatch,” Wright said. “I’ve been raised around chickens and ducks my whole life, yet I have never been able to actually see them hatch. Watching them grow from egg to chicks and how quickly they grow is definitely something that fascinates me the most.”
Wright said the project has deepened her appreciation for farmers and those who care for animals.
“This project has definitely made me appreciate farmers and people who raise animals like chickens,” she said. “The time and effort that goes into keeping, controlling, and taking care of animals is something that’s always been undermined, and I truly believe it should be talked about more.”
She added that the experience has taught her valuable lessons beyond the classroom.
“Some of the skills I have learned from this project are definitely responsibility and care,” Wright said. “Not only having animals at home and taking care of them myself, but watching our substitute and how she takes meticulous time for them is something that teaches a valuable lesson. I think this is a wonderful program for Ag students, or anyone, for that matter. It’s exciting, teaches responsibility, and gives you a new pet! It allows people to experience something new, as not many people get to experience having farm animals.”
Miranda Brakefield, owner and founder of Sunshine Farm in Lexington, South Carolina, said she is proud to see the program expanding into Georgia through Growing Augusta’s AgLab: #ChickEdition.
“Sunshine Farm has partnered with families, elementary schools, daycares, summer camps, and homeschool co-ops across South Carolina to bring hands-on learning through our chick-hatching experience,” Brakefield said. “This October, we expanded into Augusta, Georgia, and had great success hatching with several schools and eight local families. When Karen Gordon reached out, it opened the door for our very first partnership with a public high school, which has been an incredible milestone.”
Brakefield said she was honored to support Gordon in adapting the program for older learners. “It feels amazing to see the Sunshine Farm program grow and to have supported Karen in expanding it through the AgLab: #ChickEdition project,” she said. “My hope is that this experience inspires high school students to see the value of farming, growing, and agriculture—not just as classroom lessons, but as real career paths and life skills.”
She added that Sunshine Farm has hatched more than 600 chicks this year and continues to grow. “While our bookings are closed for 2025, we’ve already started filling spots for 2026,” Brakefield said. “As we continue to grow, I plan to develop more curriculum specifically geared toward high school learners so Sunshine Farm can continue collaborating with programs like this in the future.”
Gordon said she measures success in both student learning and community response. “We’re tracking student growth in agribusiness math, recordkeeping, and safe animal handling,” she said. “On the community side, we’ll look at family engagement, chick adoptions, and requests to replicate the project. We’ll use simple pre- and post-reflections and teacher rubrics to measure changes in career awareness and confidence.”
Growing Augusta is developing a teacher guide to help others replicate the program. The guide maps each activity to Georgia’s Basic Agriculture standards and includes templates for safety plans, parent communication, assessment rubrics, and SAE documentation. The organization also provides ongoing planning and troubleshooting support during the hatch cycle.
Gordon said the project gives students practical preparation for careers in hatcheries, poultry operations, animal care and farm-to-table businesses.
“They learn to follow procedures, maintain biosecurity, communicate with customers, and understand how small changes affect both animal welfare and profit,” she said. “They’re also connecting with community mentors who can support early internships and job opportunities.”
She credited educator Chante Luckie for encouraging her to take the teaching position that made the pilot possible.
“Once she learned Cross Creek needed a long-term agriculture sub, she called me,” Gordon said. “I had no plans to teach, but I’m so grateful to be learning alongside the students.”
Gordon said the pilot’s success will determine future expansion. “We’ll look at student outcomes, teacher feedback, and community response,” she said. “If Cross Creek meets our benchmarks, we’ll refine the materials and launch a scaled kit model for other schools in spring 2026.”
She added that Growing Augusta’s mission directly aligns with programs like AgLab: #ChickEdition. “Growing Augusta sits at the intersection of arts, agriculture, and agency,” she said. “We design hands-on, story-driven experiences. This project isn’t just about hatching chicks—it’s about telling the story of food, labor, and community, and giving students creative ways to share what they’ve learned.”
Sunshine Farms created the original chick hatching project in Lexington, South Carolina. Growing Augusta’s AgLab: #ChickEdition honors that foundation while adapting it for high school rigor and Georgia Basic Agriculture standards. Schools and districts will be able to request the complete implementation packet, including lesson sequences, alignment sheets, and student templates, in early 2026.
To learn more about this pilot program, contact Karen Gordon at (762) 233-5299 and kgordon@growingaugusta.org.
Nick Lovett is an independent journalist with over 20 years of experience in news media and marketing. A former writer for Aiken Standard and Fort Gordon’s Signal newspaper, she focuses on human interest stories that highlight resilience, community and positive change.
