Dawson students meet the chickens

Classes may not be in session, but there is always plenty of activity over the summer on the Dawson School campus, from Dawson Summer Camps and the Dawson Summer Initiative, to the big Prep Lacrosse Showcase, and Boulder County's sheriffs using campus for training.

Among all of those folks coming and going, you will find a dedicated core of volunteers who look after Dawson's two Learning Gardens and look in on the school's newest 'enrollees' : chickens.

The four gorgeous hens (a Rhode Island Red, Red Star, Barred Plymouth Rock, and a Mottled Java) from Red Hen Farms are settling in nicely to their new Dawson home. The hens add to Dawson's growing suite of outdoor education options upon which the faculty draw for use not only in biology and sciences, but math, art and more.

The chickens' environment was a community effort: the coop was created by environmental science students, and Upper School students from physics, design and engineering created a windmill to help power the coop's automatic, light-sensitive door and feed mechanism.

The hens will begin laying in August when they are about five months old. Due to regulations, those eggs won't be used in Dawson's dining hall, but volunteers will quickly learn that the eggs are definitely edible and tasty.