AgScape grew from strength to strength throughout the pandemic, and its trajectory continues to climb.
“After so many years of work and assembling a group of talented individuals, we’re being recognized as experts in the field of agriculture and food education,” said Kathryn Doan, AgScape board chair, at the provincial agri-food education organization’s recent annual meeting in Guelph.
“About 75 per cent of our programs are still for virtual activities, so not only does this mean that we can offer some stability to the educators that we work with, but it also means that we can reach farther than ever.”
Read Also
HJV Equipment expands as full-line PTx Trimble dealer
HJV Equipment expands as a full-line PTx Trimble dealer, increasing its capacity to assist growers with advanced agricultural technology solutions.
Why it matters: AgScape provides factual curriculum-linked food literacy programs and resources for educators and students throughout Ontario.
In 2022, AgScape provided approximately 797,500 educational experiences to students across the province, including seven northern school districts serving diverse communities. The experiences would have been inaccessible previously due to high expense and travel costs.
“(That) is staggering,” said Mira Lyonblum, AgScape executive director. “Even more so when you stop to consider there is a real person and a real story attached to each and every one of those (student experiences).”
The lessons and resources housed within AgScape’s digital library were downloaded more than 45,000 times, reaching 2,600 classrooms, and those only represent the ones teachers report, said Lyonblum.
“We know that our resources get shared beyond that in other ways that we can’t even track. We held 16 virtual field trips, which reached over 1,100 classrooms, plus the recorded videos were accessed many times after the event.”
The Teacher Ambassador Program (TAP) reflects the evolution and growth of AgScape with development of new lessons and reach to include Grade 4 to Grade 12 students instead of a Grade 7 entry point.
The TAP program offers opportunities to deliver content outside conventional classrooms, hire more teacher ambassadors and streamline the program management system to enhance booking and administration, said Doan.
By continually assessing its resources, AgScape ensures program content and delivery reflects diverse cultures, communities and abilities.
“Camp AgScape welcomes new audiences like students who are homeschooled or on school breaks, along with those in classrooms,” Lyonblum said.
In 2022, the Think Ag Career Competition held 12 in-person events with 4,000 students hearing from 63 industry volunteers at activity stations that demonstrated agricultural career opportunities.
It’s easy to forget AgScape is a small team because of its impact numbers, said Lyonblum, but its success reflects the extraordinary flexibility demonstrated by the staff.
In March 2023, AgScape’s programs, resources and events reached more than 100,000 youths in 600 classrooms during the Canadian Agriculture Literacy Month through TAP, digital resource packages and teacher discovery kits, virtual field trips and events involving maple syrup production, beef farming, tractor dealerships and genomics.
“This small but mighty crew fields a daily deluge of emails from educators requesting our program, put together funding proposals which allow our resources to remain free, and in their extra time put on events like this (annual general meeting),” she said.
AgScape’s 2022 to 2025 strategic plan is to continue building partnerships and community, sustainability and excellence in agriculture and food education, said Doan.
“Our problem is not a lack of demand for our programs. On the contrary, we’re at the point where we can’t expand our programming further in an effective way without investment and making sure that our future is sustainable.”
By diversifying its support base, AgScape developed new membership packages and supporter levels, which helped its fiscal forecast despite the pandemic.
Doan said AgScape will build on the success of the strategic plan’s first year and extend its reach into school boards across the province.
“Our commitment to excellence in agriculture and food education allows us to prioritize adaptive innovation,” she said. “The wider we can spread the message that we need to take action in raising the next generation of leaders in agriculture and food, the better it is for all of us.”
