A former Lucasfilm exec created this time-traveling chicken to help kids cope with climate change

Kids today are understandably anxious about climate change. One survey published last year found that 59% of children and young adults  were very or extremely worried about the environment, with more than 45% saying their feelings about climate change negatively affected their daily life and functioning. Another survey found that 83% of children in 15 countries report witnessing climate change affecting the world around them.



Future Chicken, a new Canada-based multi-platform digital universe geared toward kids aged 6 to 10 that launched this month, is attempting to educate kids and their families about climate change without the doom and gloom. The new series and platform is produced by Wind Sun Sky Entertainment CEO Catherine Winder, a former Lucasfilm executive who produced the popular animated series Star Wars: Clone Wars as well as films like The Angry Birds Movie and Ice Age: The Meltdown. She co-created the concept with Annabel Slaight, the founding chair of nonprofit organizations Ontario Water Centre and ClearWater Farm, which works with young people through science, technology, and the arts toward building a more sustainable future.



The main character of the digital universe Winder and Slaight created is an eco-superhero chicken named Potato—a.k.a. Future Chicken—who time travels between the present day and 2050 with her team of Planet Protectors including her best friend Frittata, an egg with rocket pants for flight who likes to crack jokes; Persa, an electric catfish who is a water and energy expert; Worm the Worm, a soil expert and “agriprenuer”; and Bello, an eco-detective mushroom with a passion for cyclical regeneration.



Kids and their parents can interact with these characters in a variety of ways including through The Future Chicken Today Show, an animated TV talk show on CBC Kids on Canada’s public television network, which will feature guests like gold medal olympic swimmer Penny Oleksiak and Britain’s Got Talent finalist, eight-year-old Aneeshwar Kunchal. There’s also a podcast, YouTube Shorts, and a Roblox game that allows players to engage in environmentally friendly tasks such as shutting off the light or not using too much water to advance to the next round.



Catherine Winder [Photo: Future Chicken]



“I think the concept of bringing good news from the future to the present is an amazing one,” Winder tells Fast Company. She also says it was important to embrace technology, because “whether or not we like it, that’s where kids are today. They’re on multiple platforms.”The idea for Future Chicken started at ClearWater Farm when Sleight and her team were working with kids to brainstorm and talk about climate change and eco-anxiety. They were playing with live chickens on the farm when some of the kids made up a story about a time-traveling chicken that comes from the future to spread positive news. After Winder heard about the idea, she wanted to find a way to turn it into a project integrating entertainment and technology to meet kids in the virtual spaces they frequent today.



Winder says it was important to her and Slaight that kids were involved in the actual development of the platform as well, so they started focus groups with kids to give feedback, which helped shape their content. “They even came up with the name,” Winder says. “We had another name and it wasn’t good enough, so they came up with Future Chicken instead. So, the idea was: If we’re looking to empower, engage, and inspire kids, their voices need to be heard all the way through everything we do.”



Winder says her experience working with filmmakers like George Lucas put her in a unique position to build Future Chicken into a bigger brand. “When I built the team that produced and adapted Star Wars into Clone Wars, I saw how bringing characters to life in new, adapted ways resonated with audiences—and the ripple effects and continuation of that property is extraordinary,” Winder says. “I’ve learned in all my experiences, and working on Ice Age and Angry Birds, that it is critical to create fun characters that are compelling and that our audience loves.”



Many news headlines about climate change can be overwhelming and negative, and Winder admitted one of the challenges for the platform was striking the right balance between setting a positive tone and emphasizing how serious the issue of climate change is. She says they worked closely with a learning advisory committee through their nonprofits. And before writing the YouTube Shorts, they made sure to identify topics and determine what the learning takeaway is.



“We’ve got to entertain, we’ve got to have fun,” Winder says. “There’s also educational underpinnings in everything we do. It’s interwoven in all the storytelling, but we want kids to feel like there’s positive things happening. We’re also acknowledging that not everything is perfect. If we’re pretending everything was great all the time, it wouldn’t feel authentic, and we would lose that audience.”While the platform is still in the early stages, Winder says the big vision is to build a global community of Future Chicken Planet Protectors to empower kids who feel like they can make a difference and be a catalyst for change when it comes to the climate.



“We want to do it in a way that kids have the tools they can activate,” Winder says. “They don’t have to be superheroes. They can just do little, small steps. Ultimately, as we grow our community and use technology, the strategy is to be able to show kids how with their small steps combined with all the other Planet Protectors out there makes a massive difference.”