William O’Donnell, 5, will enter school for the first time this fall, an event months in the making
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Thunder Bay students learn farming from the Pizza Project
A cheesy tradition introduces students to agriculture
By Clare Bonnyman, CBC News Posted: Apr 14, 2016 7:30 AM ET
http://www.cbc.ca/i/caffeine/syndicate/?mediaId=2686886767
One of the eight stations the children got to visit was the sausage station, where Sam Milne, of Edgewater Park Public School, got to help turn a crank to make sausages. (Amy Hadley/CBC)
The Pizza Project has been running for 24 years in Thunder Bay, welcoming grade three students to take part in the ‘eight slices of learning’, including everything from vegetables and grains to machinery and nutrition. (Clare Bonnyman/CBC)
For a lot of students, meeting the cows was a highlight of the trip. They learned about taking care of cows, when they produce milk, and the production process for dairy farmers. (Clare Bonnyman/CBC)
Local farmers were on hand to help guide students in agricultural practices, and bring the farm to the city. (Clare Bonnyman/CBC)
Students got the chance to learn where milk comes from, and try out a milking machine with their thumbs. (Clare Bonnyman/CBC)
For Oakleigh Yesno, he said the day was ‘pretty cool, I’ve never seen anyone milk a cow before.’ Along with other students in his class, he learned that there are different ways to make pizza. (Clare Bonnyman/CBC)
There were eight stations for students to explore, including one which featured a cow and her newborn calf, with the opportunity to learn about cow nutrition. (Clare Bonnyman/CBC)
For Ella Code, 8 and Marcus Dahlin, 9, of C.D Howe Public School, it was a fun opportunity to get out of the classroom and learn. The students got to plant a tomato plant while they were there, something Ella enjoyed. She said she’s not a fan of pizza, but ‘I like growing stuff’. (Amy Hadley/CBC)
All students who attended walked away with a carton of milk, a slice of pizza, and their very own potted tomato plant. (Amy Hadley/CBC)
Grade 3 students from Thunder Bay are learning where all the ingredients for pizza come from at the annual Pizza Project Wednesday and Thursday at the Canadian Lakehead Exhibition.
It’s a tradition for Marian Benka, the honourary director of the CLE, who has been running the annual event for 24 years.
It’s an important way to educate students and bring the farm to the city, she said.
“They have to know that there are a lot of things that go into [pizza] before they can get it,” Benka said.
Benka expects more than 600 children to attend this year’s two day event.
Students go through eight stations to learn about agriculture, including dairy, sausage, vegetables, machinery and nutrition.
Along the way they plant their very own tomato plant to take home, and at the end they get to savour a hot a slice of pizza.
The Simple Solution to Sexual Assault.
Anne-Marie Roy, president of the University of Ottawa’s Student Federation (SFUO), is sending out a clear message to students:
“Don’t rape”.
As post-secondary students head back to school, safety becomes a top priority. A growing concern regarding safety is the ‘epidemic of rape culture’ on campus.
Roy, a leader in the SFUO since 2013, has seen the school through multiple cases of sexual assault. Roy herself was a victim of sexual harassment last year, when a leaked Facebook message revealed sexual threats from male students.
In February of 2014 two University of Ottawa men’s hockey players were accused of sexually assaulting a young woman in Thunder Bay while away for a game. The two men are set to face charges in court, and the male hockey team is suspended for the 2014-2015 school year.
The controversial suspension is a serious move on the part of the university to stand against sexual violence, but “there is more work that needs to be done,” says Roy.
“University and college campuses are a reflection of what our society actually is. I think that the University of Ottawa, and all other universities, do need to show a bit more leadership in terms of tackling this issue,” she says.
A problem with the modern response to rape culture is the tendency to ‘victim-blame’; when services and programs to prevent sexual assault focus on arming potential victims with self-defense and preventative skills.
“We all know that, despite all of our efforts,” says Roy, “unfortunately it still happens.”
Roy wants to move forward with a message of responsibility and awareness, moving away from ‘victim-blaming’ towards “teaching what I think is a very good lesson – Don’t rape,” she says.
There is no one program or service in place to fight campus rape culture across Canada. But Roy stresses the importance of working with each community.
“I think that having a uniform approach in fighting rape culture is not effective,” she says. “The challenges that we see are not the same for students engaging in different activities across campus.”
For the SFUO this resulted in the formation of a task force against rape culture on campus, established in early 2014.
The aim is to ask, “what is the culture within particular spaces on campus, to come up with a tailored approach to tackle rape culture in each of these spaces” Roy explains.
In the meantime, her message to incoming and returning students about sexual violence is very simple.
“Just don’t do it,” she says.
Who, what, when, where. But why?
“Where are you from?”
It’s one of the first questions they ask you when you enter University residences. And from that point on, everyone around you has expectations. If you’re from a big city they expect a certain attitude or knowledge, if you’re from a small-town they expect a certain personality and set of habits.
Your regional identity gives people around you a sense of what to expect from you, a sort of standard, and also gives yourself a sense of who you are. We are the result of our environments, and so to be raised in one city versus another creates unique patterns, likes, dislikes and personality traits that make up who we are.
It also gives us a sense of history. You can’t really know who you are until you know where you’ve come from. It doesn’t mean you’ll act a certain way, but it gives you a sense of where you came from, which can change your attitudes towards a number of things. Coming from the suburbs versus the city can make a huge difference, even if it is only a number of minutes away.
Today I had a chance to speak with Norman Simpson, a 72 year old, self identified ‘Ulster Man’, and a retired private from the UDA (Ulster Defence Regiment) who has lived in Armagh Co., Northern Ireland his whole life. As he told me, he’s an Ulster Man, his father was an Ulster Man, and I’m sure his grandfather and his grandfather’s grandfather were Ulster Men as well. It gives him a sense of belonging, in a country that seems to be so stuck on the idea of belonging, rights and the privileges that come with that belonging. In such a confusing world, how do you know where you fit in if not by following the patters of those who came before you?
Regardless of whether or not an individual stays in the same place they grew up or came from, one’s regional identity holds a certain permanence. One day I hope to live and work in the U.K. but that won’t ever stop me from saying I’m Canadian, even if my passport says otherwise some day. If anything, it might stand to explain why I talk funny.
Really, regional identity all comes down to identifying yourself and knowing where you fit in -essentially the ultimate question for the human condition.
If you know where you are, you know more about who you are, and you know where to call home.
An Almost Irish Man-Hunt
A potential story idea that kept crossing my path is the story of Martin Corey, an IRA-volunteer in 1973 who was arrested, then released in 1992, and arrested again in recent years. Unfortunately for many reasons, this was not to be. (I do recommend a quick google though, you won’t be disappointed).
And so I find myself circling around an original idea that seems like more of an existential quest:
What does it mean to be Irish today?
It should be noted that I’m asking this question at an interesting point in history, given the looming Scottish vote for Independence. Due to come in September, there are a number of articles arguing the potential effects of the Independence vote on Northern Ireland. Most of these articles are coming from large cities and political centres- Belfast, London, the BBC etc. I’m interested to see what the people of Armagh think of such an issue. Will the Scottish Independence vote change the feelings of the inhabitants of Armagh? Does it make them feel any more or less tied to the United Kingdom? And what does it really mean to be an inhabitant of Northern Ireland today?
There are specialists and scholars crying for a “crisis in unionism“, saying that an independent Scotland would kickstart the transition “from Great Britain to little Britain“. But I’m curious, does small-town Northern Ireland truly feel those close ties to the U.K? Or would Scotland’s independence just mean a smaller United Kingdom?
Clare Bonnyman 