AITC-C NEWSLETTER | OCTOBER 2020 |
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THIS OCTOBER, WE ARE THANKFUL. |
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A Message from Johanne Ross,
AITC-C Executive Director
Thanksgiving - such an important time to gather with family and friends to celebrate the wind down of harvest (for many), and to enjoy the safe, abundance of delicious, nutritious, Canadian-grown FOOD (for all)! I’m sure your celebrations looked and felt different this year, as did mine, but the heart and purpose of the holiday doesn’t change. We have many blessings to be thankful for.
We have all experienced changes through these interesting times - including all of us at AITC. We continue to be ever-thankful for all the support we receive, our proud partnerships, and our ability to have nimbly pivoted our learning methods to continue towards AITC's vision of agriculture in every classroom, inspiring every student. Below, I am so proud to share some updates celebrating how we are continuing to support our school communities across Canada through online and virtual learning and more.
We could never do this alone. Thank you to our provincial AITC members and staff, our boots on the ground and faces on the screens. Thank you to all our partners and donors, you fuel our tanks. Thank you to AITC board members and all our volunteers, you inspire us everyday with your vision and dedication. Thank you to our Canadian teachers and students, YOU are the reason we are still here, at your service. We still see you, hear you and support you. We will continue to do everything we can to give you the right tools, on the best platforms, to connect you to Canada’s wonderful, dynamic, diverse and important agriculture and food story.
We may look and sound a little different these days, but it’s still us, still here, inspiring meaningful connections to agriculture and food across Canada.
Johanne Ross
Executive Director, AITC-C
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#GivingTuesday
As a Canadian charity, AITC-C is excited to join the world-wide #GivingTuesday movement, starting this week and ending on the official Tuesday of Giving - December 1st. During this time, we will be sharing stories of our partnerships and thanking all of our generous donors. If you are interested in contributing to our fundraising goals, please visit our Canada Helps Donation Page.
Provincial Impact Framework Sessions - Gone Virtual!
We are excited to hear from stakeholders, partners, agriculture industry professionals and educators during our Provincial Impact Framework Sessions. We completed the Ontario and Alberta sessions in person before the COVID pandemic, and have now moved the remaining sessions online over the next two months. Participants are invited to share questions and feedback in our online workspace, before each provincial virtual session. If you are wanting to attend please reach out to Johanne at anytime.
Virtual Provincial Sharing Sessions a Success!
With the inability to meet face to face as a full Canada-wide team for our annual Summer Sharing Session, AITC-C decided to incorporate its favourite learning get-together online this past June. We are excited to be able to continue with these virtual Provincial Sharing Sessions in December of this year, so we can continue to learn from our AITC teams across Canada.
NEW! Teachers' Online Survey
This year, AITC-C is asking teachers from across Canada to take part in a Teachers' Feedback Survey to help us gain insight into the development and promotion of our resources, initiatives and programs. Hearing from educators across Canada is incredibly important in determining the value and sustainability of our current offerings and will help to inform and shape our future direction.. If you are a Canadian educator, please take our survey.
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Six Students Receive Scholarships
Six exceptional students were awarded the first-ever G3 Grow Beyond Scholarship after submitting a video essay on how they would bring innovation to agriculture.
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Measuring our Impact
AITC-C has released it 2019/2020 Impact Report that boasted reaching a phenomenal 2,102,844 students from coast-to-coast.
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Congratulations!
New Board Chair, Executives Officers
Four new Executive Officers were elected to the AITC-C Board of Directors on June 23, 2020.
These included AITC provincial directors Pat Tonn (BC) as Chair, Sue Clayton (MB) as Vice-President Sara Shymko (SK) as Treasurer, and Rebecca Sooksom (NS) as Secretary.
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Welcome
Dr. Nancy Tout
AITC-C are excited to welcome Dr. Nancy Tout as Interim Executive Director for AgScape!
In this new role, she will also represent Ontario at the AITC Canada board table. Nancy is a long time Ag champion - from years of volunteering in classrooms and previously on AgScape's board.
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Online Educator Resource Matrix and Provincial Portals Project |
AITC-C has added new resources to the Canadian Educator's Matrix so it now has over 160 free, curriculum-linked resources, activities and lesson plans.
Eight of our ten provincial member organizations have recently launched their own Resource Portals. This will provide direct access from their specific websites to free, curriculum-linked resources available to teachers in their provinces. While we are in the progress of developing the portals for New Brunswick and Quebec, you can view the portals for provincial AITC members in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Nova Scotia, P.E.I, and Newfoundland & Labrador.
Contact Melissa Galey, our education specialist, for more information.
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AITC-C has added FIVE new snapAG information sheets about Plant and Animal Proteins to our collection - bringing the total number of fact sheets to 61. We are currently in the process of developing an additional 15 sheets with topics including food security, robotics and regenerative agriculture! View our snapAG sheets.
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COMING SOON! The new thinkAG.ca website, which will go live early next year, will be an exciting resource for Canadian teens to explore careers tailored to their interests. Complete with great visual and interactive features, it will highlight the diverse array of careers in the agri-food supply system, provide easy access to career guidance resources, and allow members of the agriculture industry to share about their amazing careers in agriculture and food.
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LOOKING FOWARD: CALM 2021
CELEBRATING 10 YEARS
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We are excited to announce that the 2021 edition of Canadian Agriculture Literacy Month will be its 10th Anniversary. We will be celebrating in style with an updated logo and amazing virtual events. Stay tuned!
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FROM OUR AITC MEMBER PROVINCES |
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Across Canada, our provincial members are working hard to continue to implement programs and provide resources for teachers and students even during the pandemic. With each province dealing with unique rules and restrictions, the learning continues! AITC teams from coast to coast have adjusted, shifted and even created new offerings to continue to offer innovative and impactful ways to reach students, teachers and at home learners. Even with a few challenges, our AITC teams are showing their resilience, dedication, passion and professionalism with continuing to offer excellent opportunities for agri-food learning!
Check out a few highlights below!
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QUEBEC: École-O-Champ Introduces JEBA
École-O-Champ's Young Bio-Food Entrepreneurs program (JEBA), dedicated to preteens, teens and young adults, focuses on giving a concrete education about careers related to agriculture, the development of environmental awareness, social engagement and the professional development of our youth. During their program, the trainees participate to every step of a field vegetable production such as sowing, crop maintenance, biological control, field management, harvesting and product marketing.
The trainees took part in various food-processing activities as well as in the zero-waste distribution and sale of their processed products. In addition, throughout the season, workshops and thematic conferences are given by actors of the bio-food industry, exposing the young bio-food entrepreneurs to the reality and to the different professions of the industry!
"We are proud to say that this year’s program was a success! We saw smiles, laughs and bright-eyed kids eager to learn! This year’s program will end with our Christmas Market, where our trainees will sell their transformed products, processed with the help of local chefs."
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Saskatchewan: AITC-SK
AITC-SK is celebrating SK Ag Month with a book giveaway. Encouraging teachers to bring agriculture to life by releasing new educational resources, they can win a free agriculture book for EACH student. AITC-SK also launched three new educational, outdoor resources as well as a Foundations of SK Agriculture series of information sheets that highlight crops grown and animals raised in the province.
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Nova Scotia: AITC-NS
AITC-NS has been busy with their 'Mystery Seeds' activity and videos! Each participating classroom received six types of unlabelled seeds and as they grew, students tried to identify which plant type was sprouting. During the summer, they also filmed videos to accompany the activity which featured a small lettuce seed from planting in the greenhouse to transplanting and harvesting in the field.
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British Columbia: BCAITC
BCAITC has launched 30 new Fresh Stories! Designed for primary and intermediate level students, Fresh Stories are free, online resources that feature information about healthy foods and fun activities with curriculum connections to primary and intermediate level subjects.
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Manitoba: AITC-MB
AITC-MB has introduced five new resources which explore the dairy, potato and egg industries in Manitoba. They also recognised a MB-based teacher, Stewart Akerley, with their Teacher Driver Award, which honours educators who show exceptional leadership in agriculture education.
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Newfoundland & Labrador: AITC-NL
AITC-NL have launched their new website and logo. The user and mobile-friendly website makes agriculture education more accessible to teachers and students. It includes resources, links, activities, and storybooks that can be used to increase knowledge of agriculture in NL. They have also updated their logo to reflect both include both Newfoundland & Labrador!
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Alberta: Ag for Life
Ag for Life has released its latest issue of Nourishing Minds, a publication that enables the discovery of agriculture and food systems.They are also engaging with students through a Lunch Box Contests where youth send in photos of their lunch; and with farmers through their Farm Safety Photo Contest. They also have created 18 new How-To manuals for edible gardens!
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Prince Edward Island: AITC-PEI Engages with Students Through genAG
AITC-PEI is continuing to bring genAG into high schools – in-person -this school year, to highlight agriculture careers to PEI students - the only province that is able to do so with our current restrictions.
genAG, AITC-C’s career exploration program under the thinkAG initiative, inspires high school students to consider pursuing careers in agriculture and food. AITC-PEI has turned this program into a career tool that PEI agri-science teachers are incorporating into their curriculum.
"Every year, teachers speak of how the genAG program elicits unexpected excitement and authentic engagement from their students. The teachers recognize this for what it is - a rare and special experience,” said AITC-PEI’s genAG coordinator Marilyn Balderston.
“The students’ natural enthusiasm for being creative, testing out their ideas and then, sharing the fruits of their labour with their peers creates a buzz within the classroom and extends throughout the school, and beyond. Teachers appreciate how genAG brings their curriculum outcomes to life and value how genAG enhances the depth of learning for their students.”
Three PEI high schools are participating in the fall semester, including one school who is implementing genAG into animal science and agri-science classes. They have already began initial conversations to continue genAG programming into 2021.
Two past genAG competition winners and PEI high school students, Carleigh MacLeod and Jillian Ferguson (pictured), have continued their genAG marketing strategy, a social media campaign called Ag in the ‘Field', and will be featured in a video for The Employment Journey, which focuses on careers and job search opportunities across PEI. The two students will help AITC-PEI showcase careers in agriculture and share the positive impact the genAG program is having on students for the first video in the series.
We look forward to seeing what the future success of genAG looks like for AITC-PEI this fall!
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THANK YOU TO OUR FOUNDATIONAL PARTNERS FOR THEIR CONTINUED SUPPORT |
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Agriculture in every classroom, inspiring every student.
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