Little Snake River Students Get Hands-On In New $1.7M Livestock Center

Little fuzzy chickens have hatched at the newly built Little Snake River School’s Livestock Center, a $1.7 million hands-on animal science classroom where live animals are more often the textbook than actual books.

The chicks are part of lessons Vocational-Agriculture teacher Brett Miller has been teaching his students that includes not just the lives of these new hatchlings, but also their sometimes untimely deaths.

“Very rarely do I sit here and use a screen to teach, and they take notes, and then they take a test,” Miller told Cowboy State Daily.

Instead, Miller brings in hands-on lessons, like eggs to incubate, for example.

The students candle these eggs themselves, holding them up to light to see the outline of life growing inside. Some even witnessed the eggs being pecked out from the inside as the baby chicks decided it was time to see the world outside.

However, some of the eggs never hatched.

On Thursday, Miller passed the unhatched eggs from two classrooms around and had the students crack the smelly things open.

That’s something a producer might do to see what’s causing eggs not to hatch at an operation. Miller primarily did it so his students could see the embryos at different stages of development.

Some of the eggs had barely developed at all, but most were at varying stages of development. One had a chick that was almost fully formed but, for whatever reason, never made it out of the egg.

“The kids, if they really want to learn animals, like be an animal science person or a vet or whatever, they’re going to go to college for all that classroom stuff,” he said. “My idea here is to get them exposure to (live animals).

“That way, they’re going to have a ton more experience with the animals.”

Miller believes that will come in handy for any students who actually pursue careers with animals rather than focusing on a lot of textbook materials they’re bound to repeat later.

Miller keeps the horizon broad, exposing students to as many different aspects of the agriculture industry as possible.

“I ordered chunks of primal cuts of meat, and we cut up the meat so they would know how to break an animal apart,” he said. “And we’ve got the goats over there, and when they need their vaccinations, the kids get to do it. So as much of it hands-on as we can do.”

Punching Above Its Weight

The tiny town of Baggs, Wyoming, already has a reputation for punching way above its weight.

Told it was too small for a community center, the town defied the odds and built a huge one anyway. That has become a nerve center not just for Baggs, but surrounding communities as well.

Miller’s initial idea was a much smaller version of an ag education facility he’d seen in Cheyenne when he was doing his teaching practicum as a student at the University of Wyoming.

Miller drew on that experience after arriving at the Little Snake River Valley School District and seeing what the district had on hand for animal science classes.

“The stuff we had here already for kids to leave their animals in was really, really rundown,” Miller said. “So, we needed to do something new or better to allow the students to continue having their animals.”

As Miller saw it, Baggs already had all the land and the utilities it needed, which was the hardest part. It just needed a new plan to refresh a few things. Then Miller could add to what he was already teaching vocational-ag students so that it was not quite so shop-heavy.

His first plan was, essentially, a smaller version of what he’d seen in Cheyene. To build support, he took a smart step by presenting his idea first to the student leadership committee. 

“The kids were like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it,’” Miller recalled. “It was much smaller, much simpler, than what Cheyenne had.”

With his student leadership committee’s backing, Miller then took the idea to the next level — the school superintendent.

“I had some funding options lined up as far as just initial conversations,” Miller recalled. 

He was anticipating objections to the plan and hoped his funding ideas would forestall that. But the superintendent surprised Miller. He was all for the plan. In fact, he wanted Miller to think bigger.

Much bigger.

“I think we could do this with ESSER money,” Miller recalled the superintendent suggesting. 

Miller hadn’t heard of that program, which stands for Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief. 

The COVID-19-era grant program was created to ensure school operations could continue throughout the pandemic, but its last round of funding changed the mission slightly.

“For the last round of money, the idea was to make sure schools could provide the same opportunities to every student, regardless of background,” Miller said. “So, we have a lot of kids living on ranches, but we also have a lot of kids who don’t.”

Not Done Dreaming

Miller expanded his ideas for the building, adding room for non-ranch students to raise animals for the Carbon County Fair, as well as space for 4-H shows and other activities related to agriculture.

The facility comes with locker rooms too, so students can stash their regular school clothes while working with animals at the center.

He also added the capability to broadcast any clinics, experts or laboratory demonstrations to other school districts that might want to sit in on a presentation. He can share these classes with any school in the state.

The latter is a newer capability he doesn’t believe too many agriculture barns in the state offer yet.

In fact, the whole concept of having live animals for high school students is something he said isn’t that common. To have it in a tiny town like Baggs, whose schools serve students in Baggs, Dixon, Savery, Slater and surrounding areas, is something he believes is unusual.

“I know in Casper at the PIC (Pathways Innovation Center) facility, they will have a few,” Miller said. “And then Cheyenne has their building, and Moorcroft has a small barn.”

One other aspect of the animal science classroom/laboratory that Miller has designed is the ability to roll everything around.

That way Miller can customize the space for different activities. If the 4-H Club is having a show, for example, he can just wheel all the classroom stuff out of the way.

Miller also included three big garage doors, one of which will be directly adjacent to outdoor corrals that Miller plans on building in coming years, with help from students in the animal science and shop classes. 

That way, animals for 4-H and the fair can be dropped off into the corral and brought directly into the building for weighing.

“Another goal of this barn is when we get the corrals built, to raise some pigs and maybe a steer,” he said. “Which would then be butchered and used in our cafeteria.”

Shop classes now are building a little chicken house for the baby chicks Miller and his students have raised.

Miller has plans for other things that can be built to better appoint the new livestock center, like hooks for hanging stuff that he’ll have the shop classes build. But he hasn’t stopped dreaming big either.

Eventually, he hopes to build a greenhouse adjacent to the livestock center that would expand the plant science classes he can teach. Those students could also help raise produce the school cafeteria could use.

That’s how a tiny town like Baggs is becoming a trend-setter for ag education. It all starts with one person’s big dream, and then a small group of people who join in and just won’t stop trying to change their world.

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.