The organization has developed a teaching guide to help students learn about pig farming
By Jackie Clark
Staff Writer
Farms.com
Ontario Pork has partnered with AgScape to deliver educational resources about the pork industry to teachers of grades five to ten across the province.
“Education and outreach is a really important park of what Ontario Pork does on behalf of producers in the province,” Stacey Ash, manager of communications and consumer marketing for Ontario Pork, told Farms.com.
“Fewer and fewer people are connected to the farm. There’s just not the same understanding of how food is grown, the work that goes into it, and the career opportunities in agriculture as well,” she explained.
The organization aims to “bring information about farming practices and pork to urban audiences where people may not get a chance to learn about farming otherwise,” she said. Ontario teachers can be great partners to help with “building those bridges with consumers and future consumers.”
The Teacher's Guide includes an overview of pork production, lesson plans and a list of resources for teachers to “help students learn and connect that back to the farming industry,” she added.
Developing the Teacher’s Guide “was an opportunity to work with AgScape and bring in their teaching expertise and curriculum knowledge and combine it with hog industry expertise and knowledge and develop curricular resources that spoke to a broad range of issues,” Ash explains.
Topics include the history of pig farming, pig production and terminology, the connection between pig farming and the Canadian economy, and human nutrition and health. AgScape helped Ontario Pork connect information to curricular requirements and develop suggested activates for learning.
“We’re pretty pleased to have this resource live and really happy to work with AgScape,” Ash said.
Ontario Pork also recently developed an interactive online educational experience about the pork industry for those learning outside the classroom or independently, she added. Printable resources, videos and interactive games can be found at experienceontariopork.com.
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