Villa Maria is launching its new Techno-Farm program, an urban agriculture and composting project to be carried out on the School's campus. With this educational project, the school seeks to encourage its students and their parents to become more eco-responsible.
Involving the creation of more than 2,000 square feet of garden plots as well as the implementation of a composting program, the urban Techno-Farm offers students a variety of learning activities: observation visits, thematic workshops, production workshops (various sensors, composting systems) as well as data analysis workshops.
"We invite Villa Maria's students at every level to get involved and contribute to the project within the framework of their extracurricular and Academics+ activities. This initiative will allow students to lead a series of ongoing scientific experiments and engineering projects enriching their scientific knowledge. They will also have the opportunity to apply concretely, many elements of their study program," noted André Cholmsky, one of the School's teachers.
Villa Maria's Techno-Farm received funding from the NovaScience program, an initiative of Québec's Ministère de l'Économie, de la Science et de l'Innovation (Ministry of Economy, Science and Innovation), which supports a better understanding of science and technology. The Techno-Farm is also supported by Building Blocks Tutorials, the Villa Maria Parents Association, the Villa Maria Parent-Teacher Association and the Villa Maria Mothers' Guild.
Within the framework of the NovaScience program, visits, workshops and long-term projects will also be organized for other schools. "This project will further make it possible to raise awareness, among students of neighbouring schools, of the small-scale use of agricultural technology, agricultural science and composting as well as the broader notions of eco-citizenship and sustainable development. Once harvests are adequate, plans call for distributing the gardens' produce to community organizations," concluded Villa Maria teacher Rebecca Pearce.
For more information:
www.villamaria.qc.ca