This year’s National Science Week theme is Food: Different by Design, which is a fantastic opportunity for science teachers to reflect on how to integrate food and agriculture concepts into their science and technology curriculum.
For many teachers, the idea of integrating something to do with agriculture into their science lessons might seem scary, very time consuming and beyond their capabilities.
But this is far from the truth as there are many ways in which teachers can include great food and agriculture examples very easily. Initially teachers might think of vegetable gardens, chicken pens, recycling, composting, and worm farms as examples of sustainability and teaching kids where food comes from. These are all fantastic ways to engage your students in sustainability, conservation and the basic concepts about food and cycles.
With more of an emphasis on STEM, there are many more opportunities to integrate food and agriculture into your classroom. Collecting data about your local climate and weather, observing the changes in your natural environment in and around your school, problem-solving real-world land management issues and exploring how technology is being used to make food production more efficient are some ideas about integrating food and agriculture that will give students a hands-on understanding about the food that they eat.
PIEFA has a number of programs to assist teachers with this endeavour. Primezone, Primezone Academy, Farmer Time and Career Harvest are just some of the resources available to help teachers provide their students with a better understanding about food and fibre production.
Through this year’s National Science Week, PIEFA offer links to resources and programs that can help teachers not only during National Science Week but also to encourage teachers to continue integrating food and agriculture in the classroom all year round. Go to our special Science Week page for information: https://primezone.edu.au/science-week/. PIEFA is here to help with all of these activities so please have a look at the web page and get involved with the many activities we have planned for National Science Week.
