WINNIPEG – When Johanne Ross asks children what they think about agriculture, she often gets answers about icky, smelly animal poop.
She doesn’t deny that manure is part of a farm, but she also teaches the students that agriculture is about food.
She surprises them with a list of the industrial products that are made with animal or grain byproducts. Face cream can be made from the lanolin in cows and sheep, while canola is an ingredient in airplane de-icer liquid.
Ross, who has been executive director of Manitoba’s Agriculture in the Classroom program since 2000, told an Associated Country Women of the World conference Sept. 18-19 that it’s important to be truthful with agricultural information.
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“Always be accurate, balanced and current. We tell the whole story of agriculture. Teachers like that.”
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Because agriculture is not taught in school as a separate course, the program offers teachers ways to include farming content into science, math or social studies classes.
Besides providing resources to teachers, the program also offers special events and classroom visits. Ross, a mother of three boys, said it can be difficult to engage children so she uses a system she calls the three Fs: fitness to get them moving, food for them to eat and learning that is fun.
Twice a year she holds an Amazing Agriculture Adventure, which Grade 4 and 5 students in Brandon in June and Winnipeg in September progress around 18 learning stations, listening to producers tell them about soil, animals and crops.
For example, she said students learn why potatoes can be grown in Carberry, Man., but not around Winnipeg.
At the end of the day they learn a lesson in farm finances.
An auctioneer arrives, students are given play money and the bidding begins for cookies. Ross joked that the chocolate chip cookies draw bigger bids than the raisin oatmeal ones, which reflects the reality that not every farmer can afford the best and newest machinery.
A popular program is the made-in-Manitoba breakfast, which Ross presents in 12 schools a year. She said there is enough demand to hold the program in 100 schools a year, if enough money and resources were available.
The breakfast offers flax pancakes, pork sausages, canola margarine, milk, honey and eggs and is cooked and served by farmers who talk about what happens to the food they grow or raise after it leaves the farm and before it hits students’ plate.
Ross said the producers like attending the breakfasts because children often thank them with hugs.
