Canola Learning Centre
Manitoba Canola Learning Centre 2001 Report
The 2001 Canola Learning Centre year was an adverse one with many obstacles to overcome and as usually, the weather was number 1. Seeding at Kelburn Farm was late due to the huge amount of precipitation that occurred in May, delaying seeding until the beginning of June. With 600 grade 3 and 5 students coming out to the CLC, there would be no crops to see, so with a challenge in hand and solution came from nature. The precipitation made it impossible in certain areas to seed or even till. This allowed weeds to grow and flourish. With no canola, wheat, barley, and oat crops to examine, then next best thing was to create an identification day of weeds and soil types. The students toured the farm as per previous years but the focus was identifying weeds and understanding another part of farming. Workbooks were created to guide the students and teachers to find the most popular weeds, record them and sketch characteristics of them. To help this process, Weed Identification books by the Canola Council of Canada were used to help the students. The students experienced another side of farming along with new indoor experiments for the students which included DNA testing of onions, lesson excerpted from the Ag in the Classroom resource "A Lunch Box for Plants" identifying seeds to appropriate food products and viewing all of the farm equipment. Students spent their time at Kelburn Farm in the morning, stayed for lunch and then went off to Glenlea’s Research Farm for another story of agriculture, the animal side.
The crops continued to grow and tours in July and August sprouted with over 500 children and day care workers attending the CLC. Then for September, the CLC went on the road to Amazing Grains at the Red River Exhibition grounds. Amazing Grains is an Ag in the Classroom project. The CLC was located in the Amazing Crops station along with Agricore, Department of Ag & Food and Canadian Grain Commission. Grade 4-6 students, mostly from the inner city, learned about biotechnology and where and how canola oil is produced. It was an amazing 3-day event with over 1400 students attending. The message of where canola oil is found was reinforced in the lunchtime auction. Auctioneers auctioned canola cookies to the classrooms. Each classroom received a pre-determined amount of money and like in real life, you only have so much money to purchase in this case canola cookies. It was a hit with the students.
The CLC looks forward to next year with school tours in June, daycare in July and August and continuing to be part of Amazing Grains in Winnipeg and there are discussions for an event in Brandon. The CLC celebrated its 5th year and it continues to grow and expand each year. |
