Lessons learned on farm take root in classroom

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This article was published 04/03/2020 (2201 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A chorus of questions broke out Wednesday in Bairdmore School, after a presenter informed a Grade 3 class soy is used to make their crayons — one of many farm-related facts shared with the students during Canadian Agriculture Literacy Month.

A total of 21 students crowded on the carpet around Samantha Clemis to learn about the crops grown in Manitoba, job opportunities in agriculture, and how technology is being used on farms.

Despite growing up surrounded by farmers fields in Carman, Clemis recalls she and her classmates learned little about the people working all around them to harvest crops.

While agricultural-related topics can be embedded into science, geography and other lessons, agriculture itself wasn’t explicitly part of the provincial curriculum, and that hasn’t changed.

“When you’re in elementary school, you don’t really think of agriculture as a future job. You’ve got your standard teacher, doctor, whatever, but if you would’ve told me in elementary school that I was going to get an agronomy degree, I wouldn’t have believed it,” said Clemis, who is studying for a masters in plant science at the University of Manitoba.

Perhaps unsurprisingly then, Clemis was motivated to ensure students across the province learn the lessons about agriculture she didn’t get the chance to in her grade-school years.

Clemis is one of 165 volunteer agriculture professionals scheduled to visit 188 schools across Manitoba during March to share lessons prepared by Agriculture in the Classroom Manitoba.

On Wednesday, her hour-long lesson at the south Winnipeg school included teaching about the 150 types of potato varieties grown across the country, showing mustard seed samples, and telling students about jobs related to farming — many of which require using drones or other advanced technology.

After asking the students if they liked building with Lego, she told them farm manager and farm equipment repair roles require lots of hands on work.

“It just helps children learn the basics of how their food gets from the farm gate to the plate,” said Sue Clayton, executive director of Agriculture in the Classroom Manitoba.

Clayton said as Manitobans become more distanced from farms, it’s important citizens are well-informed about the agriculture industry so they can have trust in the food system. Not only that, she added, but the Canadian Agriculture Literacy Month lessons introduce students to jobs in an industry where there’s a high demand for skilled employees.

While the number of farms and farm operators are on the decline Canada-wide, individual farms are getting larger and using more land, according to Statistics Canada. Between 2011 and 2016, the average age for farmers rose, as did the area of cropland across Canada, with the latter increasing almost seven per cent during that time.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @macintoshmaggie