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l % Increased awareness 18 mm of â€"â€"Jâ€"â€"â€"/â€"â€"â€"~‘~ B) ('arnl Stewart-Kirkb) The desire to improve the agricultural awareness of children and their teachers prompted members of the \ULIIth‘stL‘rtt Ontario Women lot the §upport of Agriculture to \[Ltl‘l the Agriculture in the ('lttsxrooin (AITC) program. .lohnson‘ past Education for lean chairman of the ( otnmittce. one particular incident brought home the nccd l‘or .-\lT(.‘. "My son was It] (iradc 2 at the time and the teacher was discussing dairy cattle. He said it was possible to have red and white Holsteins. H'lic disagreed. When my son came home. he was quite upset. lhc new day. he took a copy oli the Holstein Journal to school to shop. the red and white llolstcins. The teacher apologi/cd to him.” Jean uplaincd. “l rcrtlired the teachers may want to teach agriculture. but they don't knots where the current resources are," she added. Sit/antic l eitch, a coâ€"r'ounder ol‘ AITC, was first alerted to the need [or an AITC program after reading an article quoting the then Minister of Agriculture and Food Dennis Timbrell. “1t talked about the large vacuum which exists between agriculture and urban people and the lack ol~ knowledge about agri- culture." Sumnne said. At :that same time. informaâ€" tion was coming from the Jean Johnson Suzanne Ireitch United States about AITC pro- grams and shortly after, a national Agriculture in the Classroom Conference was held in Washington DC. After attending that conâ€" ference, interested WSA members approached the board of education and supplied information and resource packages to teachers. From there, the program has mushroomed to include videos puppet sets, exhibits, slides. all of which have received rate reviews and have travelled to many locations outside south- western Ontario. “After a while, we started getting interest from different parts of the country. Then. we decided to organize a national conference to bring together people from agribusiness .ind government and education to share information,” Sardine explained. With “super supr n1" from the Ontario Minislt -. of Agriculture and Food and Agriculture Canada, the un- ference was held in :‘rrxh, “Eight out of 10 province wre represented. As a result 0 first AITC programs are fiourr ‘tlng in other provinces? Su; ‘iitle said. One thing that emerget. i \m the national conference \\ t the AITC program was <9 'ing beyond the volunteers. "We were beginning to run w of steam. We are busy on th- treat level trying to offer pr03.“.'tltts and we haven’t even to xhed the private schools yet iv this area. There are more and more demands and I think 1 co- ordinator on a provincial level would help to streamline the program,” Suzanne explained. What would be the ideal situation? “If we could work with groups to get them started in their areas that would be good. Also, if there was a train- ing program endorsed by the Ministry of Education for “w J H & C April. May 1988