Canola Learning Centre

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The Manitoba Canola Growers Association, in partnership with James Richardson International (JRI), operates the Canola Learning Centre (CLC). The CLC is a teaching centre located at Kelburn Farm approximately 10 minutes south of Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Kelburn Farm is a grain research and plot test site owned and operated by JRI. On the 500 acres, JRI grows a variety of crops including canola, wheat, barley, flax, oats, rye, alfalfa, sunflowers, corn, soybeans, and a variety of other pulses.

The Manitoba CLC is a free farm tour and learning experience aimed at educating urban children four to 12 years of age and their educators, about canola and other Manitoba crops in a real agronomic setting using fun, entertaining, hands on activities. This season 800 students and educators visited the CLC at Kelburn Farm. The CLC allows the children to explore a working grain farm in a safe and educational environment.

This year, urban kids from Winnipeg learned and experienced agriculture through an intriguing and electrifying CLC tour. They learned how to identify major Manitoba crops, crushed canola to make their own oil, tasted the seeds of the land, swept for insects, rode behind a tractor pulled wagon and had the chance to climb up into a tractor for the full farming experience. The teaching activities and tours were age appropriate and hands on. This year that Green Kids visited and performed their play entitled "Awesome Powers" to a group of school age students.

"We made the tours as hands on as possible. One of the activities allowed the children to connect seeds, to plants, to food products. An activity that directly connected our food supply to farming" commented Jennifer Simpson, CLC Coordinator. The children were encouraged to ask questions throughout the tour and were always given accurate, meaningful answers that projected a confident and positive image for the agriculture industry.

At the end of the tour a fun educational trivia game reinforced the topics covered throughout the tour allowing for more questions to be asked and answered. Natalie Dickens, from Village Child Care Inc comments that "the children and staff learned a lot and the information was retained, which is a sign of success. The hands on activities are excellent!"

The Manitoba CLC is unique because it is not only a free educational tour that runs from June to August at Kelburn Farm but also becomes a satellite centre that visits urban students throughout the year. The satellite CLC visited Amazing Grains, an Agriculture in the Classroom- Manitoba initiative, which runs once a year in both Brandon and Winnipeg and reached 2,600 students. As well, the CLC set-up at the Red River Exhibition, that had 180,000 visitors through the main gates, to provide both parents and children with current, accurate information on agriculture through health information, activity books, and hands on stations that were children oriented.

The Manitoba Canola Growers Association believes that the CLC creates awareness in urban children, an under-reached audience, who will become the decision-makers of tomorrow. MCGA feels that it is of utmost importance to educate, intrigue, and inform children at young ages about agriculture to insure sustainability of the industry.