Source: Agriculture in the Classroom News Release, March 21, 2018
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, March 21, 2018 – Agriculture in the Classroom Saskatchewan (AITC-SK) launches a new educational resource, Dig Deeper: A Soil Discovery Kit for Grade 3 Students during Garden EXperience in Saskatoon.
Dig Deeper is a resource kit that is designed to encourage students to explore the story of soil, its central role in sustaining life on earth, and the role farmers play in caring for the soil. The kit contains soil and supplies so the students can explore soil life through hands-on activities and experiments. 300 kits will be distributed to teachers this Spring.
“Soil is a limited and fundamental resource which is at the heart of food production on our planet,” said federal Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister, Lawrence MacAulay. “We’re proud to support students learning about the importance of soil and its management to ensure a healthy agricultural sector.”
The development of Dig Deeper was made possible through the Agriculture Awareness Initiative, part of the federal-provincial-territorial Growing Forward 2 initiative, and matching funding from Novozymes BioAg Limited.
“This new resource is a terrific addition to ATIC-SK’s already-valuable repertoire of programs and resources for hands-on agriculture learning for students,” Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister Lyle Stewart said. “With so many agriculture and agri-food industry careers available in our province, we want kids to start thinking about opportunities in the sector early, and AITC-SK helps do that.”
“Over the years, we have received many requests for soil and soil activities from teachers,” says Sara Shymko, Executive Director of AITC-SK. “We are thrilled to fill this gap in agriculture resources with our new soil kit. Our hope is to secure further funding so all Grade 3 teachers can receive this kit in future years.”
AITC-SK will officially launch Dig Deeper on Wednesday, March 21st from 9:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at Garden EXperience in Saskatoon at the Prairieland Park. Over 1000 Grade 3 students attend Garden EXperience each year and all participating teachers will receive the highly sought after soil kit.
Staff from Novozymes will be leading a station at Garden EXperience that is based on the soil kit activities. “Novozymes is pleased to support AITC-SK’s agriculture education and awareness initiatives. We are especially pleased to support the development and distribution of this soil kit where kids will learn about various soil types and all of the wonderful micro-organisms that live in our soils – many of which play a role in growing abundant and healthy crops.” says Robert Chomyn, Business Development – North America.
A key component of the resource kit is the soil itself, which was generously collected and prepared by the Soil Science Department in the College of Ag and Bioresources.
Agriculture in the Classroom-Saskatchewan is a non-profit organization that partners with the agriculture and education communities to connect kids and agriculture through innovative, curriculum-based programs and educational resources. Last year AITC-SK reached over 74,000 students from 580 schools across the province. Learn more at www.aitc.sk.ca or on Twitter or Facebook @aitcsk.
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