Students learn about province's agriculture

Students at Dr. Brass School in the city had an opportunity to learn about food produced on Saskatchewan farms and to have a good meal too Thursday as the school hosted Breakfast from the Farm.

The program is a unique collaboration with four urban schools in the province, with Farm & Food Care Saskatchewan providing a free breakfast featuring Saskatchewan-grown foods to about 900 school youth.

In addition to their ‘breakfast for lunch’, each student received a bag with activities, recipes, pencils, and gifts from Saskatchewan farmer groups. Farm & Food Care also coordinated a series of interactive online activities such as virtual farm tours and agriculture trivia contests for students to learn more about Saskatchewan food and farming. 

Dr. Brass instructor Susan Muir said she was grateful for the Breakfast from the Farm opportunity at her school. 

“Presently, I teach a Grade 4-5 classroom with a Growing Citizens Academy in the afternoon,” she told Yorkton This Week via email, adding “I have been a Little Green Thumbs teacher for the past five years.

“This is my first year leading Growing Citizens at Dr. Brass School. With this new position, I get to teach multi-grades and multi-curricula outcomes through the umbrella of Agriculture Education, Environmental Stewardship, Indigenous Perspectives and Social and Emotional Well-Being. I do this through hands-on learning in our classroom garden and now we have a small outdoor learning garden too.

“We have grown a great garden this year benefiting with two ‘saladbrations’. We also have a few vermicompost bins and hope by fall, that all classrooms in our school will have their own bin to cut down on food waste and in turn, provide our gardens with rich fertilized soil.” 

Muir said, “teaching children where their food comes from is my mission. I plan to continue to plant ‘seeds of inspiration’.”

The breakfast program was a perfect fit for the existing programming.

“Our students are excited to learn about food grown here in Saskatchewan,” said Muir. “Connecting children to where their food comes from provides opportunities to learn about the importance of healthy eating and food sustainability. 

“Hands-on experiences of gardening create and foster wonder while becoming stewards of our environment.”