Canadian Agriculture Literacy Month celebrated in N.L.

by Chelsea Foley

“Our food, our story” was the theme for this year’s Canadian Agriculture Literacy Month (CALM) in March. CALM is a national initiative hosted by Agriculture in the Classroom Canada. Agriculture in the Classroom Newfoundland and Labrador (AITC-NL) celebrated CALM.

Agriculture in the Classroom Canada launched the celebrations with two live farm tours with federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau as a special guest. Students from across Canada were able to participate in the live farm tours and ask the farmers and the minister questions. Teachers and their classes from Newfoundland and Labrador schools participated in this event. 

Due to the pandemic, AITC-NL could not visit classrooms as it would in a typical year and instead developed a plan for the virtual delivery of CALM activities.

AITC-NL decided to animate its honeybee storybook Blossom’s Big Job and highlight it during CALM. AITC-NL worked with Vivid Communications of St. John’s and the Newfoundland and Labrador Beekeeping Association to bring Blossom’s Big Job to life.

AITC-NL partnered with the Newfoundland and Labrador Beekeeping Association to get real beekeepers to voice the characters. The Queen was voiced by Catherine Dempsey and the story was narrated by Kim Wiseman. Two students, Gabrielle Tucker and Adia Chaplin, voiced the characters of Blossom and Daisy. AITC-NL launched the digitally animated version of Blossom’s Big Job on March 1 on its social media platforms. Blossom’s Big Job can be viewed on the AITC-NL YouTube channel. 

AITC-NL also hosted a virtual CALM launch with a Grade 3 class at East Point Elementary in St. John’s. AITC-NL, along with Kim Wiseman of the Newfoundland and Labrador Beekeeping Association, presented to students. During the presentation, the students watched Blossom’s Big Job and were introduced to Wiseman.

Each week during March, AITC-NL distributed a new digital resource package to Newfoundland and Labrador elementary school teachers that they could share with their students through Google Classroom. Each package was developed using different resources and activities that related to the featured storybook of the week produced by AITC-NL. Every week, 294 classes from kindergarten to Grade 6 received a digital resource package. All resources were also shared via AITC-NL’s social media platforms. 

This year, for the first time, AITC-NL included high school classes in its CALM activities. All high school classes in the province were in an online learning environment. There were separate packages developed and shared with Newfoundland and Labrador high school teachers each week. Every week, 254 classes from grades 7 through 12 received the set of high school resources, including information on the G3 Grow Beyond Scholarship. 

AITC-NL sent resources and activities to a total of 209 schools, 548 teachers, and 11,783 students every week in March. It may have been a different Canadian Agriculture Literacy Month, but it was definitely a successful one! Visit www.aitcnl.ca for more information on resources and events.

(Chelsea Foley is the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Agriculture’s Agriculture in the Classroom coordinator.)