This month marks the 10th anniversary of Agriculture in the Classroom-Canada’s (AITC-C) Canadian Agriculture Literacy Month (CALM).
Among the many initiatives AITC-C does throughout the year, Johanne Ross, executive director of AITC-C, says this one is really special, as it was something that originally started out as only a week.
“It’s anything but calm! It’s about having that time to really highlight and bring this high-level identity to ag literacy,” Ross says. “The original week went so well we were able to expand it to a month, and we’ve been doing a month now for at least five years. What it is is an opportunity to spend that whole month where every one of the organizations across the country is usually visiting classrooms — taking in farmers, taking in ag sector representatives, and letting them go in and tell their story about what they do, why they love it, and talking to students of all ages.”
For the month of March there are activities going on in all of the provinces that focus on connecting industry and students together to talk about agriculture, and allow students in kindergarten all the way to Grade 12 to learn where their food comes from.
“This month alone is really about telling the story of Canadian agriculture, and bridging it to the students so they understand how important it is to them in their everyday lives — and they might not have even thought about it that way,” Ross explains. “During CALM we have different activities for different age groups. So in the younger age groups you might have a farmer go in and read a book about farming or what happens on a farm. As the kids get older you focus on taking that message a little deeper — talking about some of the great practices that we do through ag food production and how we take care of the environment. As we get into the even older categories we are also talking about the incredible dynamic careers in agriculture and food that are out there.”
Want to hear more? Listen to Ross’s full discussion on the t0pic during this Q&A!
Learn more about AITC-C, here.