Agducation a platform for learning

•  DA new local learning resource is bringing agriculture into classrooms. 

By Daisy Baker
August 03, 2022

Cuckoo’s Keeley Lester is a passionate and inspiring individual, now turning her love of agriculture into a learning platform to bring the subject into classrooms far and wide.

She has created Agducation to support educators and share learning resources about agriculture that link to the Australian curriculum.

Ms Lester has been a primary school teacher for the past eight years and has drawn on her farming background when bringing food and fibre production into the classroom. 

She said while there are resources out there, they are not as accessible as the other curriculum areas.

“The goal is to share it but not just with ag teachers, but in every classroom, so everyone is getting some learning around food and fibre,” she said.

“I think it’s really important because often I’ve found even adults don’t know where their food or clothing is coming from. We purchase things and don’t know who produced it or put the effort in.

“People are starting to want to know more about where things are coming from.

If this was taught in all classrooms up until year 10, we’ve educated a whole community.”

Ms Lester is currently using social media to share Agducation resources, but in the long-term she hopes it could become a website or even a program reaching classrooms across the nation.

“There are so many great schools that do teach ag but there are others that it’s not within at all,” she said.

“There are some schools they grow a bean or seed but it’s to learn the lifecycle of a seed but it could go so much further into the food and fibre or ag industry.”

The activities shared on Agducation utilise materials people might already have access to, teaching students about how food can be grown or cooked.

Down the track, Ms Lester plans to expand to include animals, animal husbandry and how the broader industry works.

One of the activities she recently shared centred around biosecurity and the threat of Foot and Mouth Disease, where the class pretend to be livestock traders.

“The teacher starts with glitter on their hand without telling anyone and starts trading by shaking hands with students and anyone at the end with glitter on their hand is infected,” she explained.

“It shows just how easily things can be spread.”

A long-term goal of Agducation is inspiring students to pursue one the many career paths that exist within the agriculture industry.

“There really are so many opportunities that can be considered and this might be a way of helping that.”