Wellington County farm family launches online videos to teach kids about agriculture

A Wellington County farming family has created an online school so young students can learn about local agriculture. 

The Pfisterer family have created a series of one-minute educational videos, similar to those seen on the social media platform TikTok, to engage young learners. The videos are free to access and are tied to the Ontario school curriculum for Grades One, Two and Three.

Topics covered include how hay is made, churning butter, tractors and pygmy goats named Jack and Jill.

Jessica Pfisterer says the idea came from remote learning during the pandemic and in talking to teachers struggling to keep children interested.

"The kids seem to be quite engaged, especially when it comes to the animals. And because they're such short snippets, I think that the kids are really — we've been told — they're really hanging on to the whole video, which is great," she said.

The videos are "not just for the pandemic, but it can be used over and over and over again," Pfisterer says.

The online farm school also allows a classroom to send the family up to five questions, which they'll answer in a video.

"I think if the kids can even just pick up one little nugget of information and learn just one thing about, you know, farm life and where food comes from, that's all we can really ask," Pfisterer said.

"Just any bit of education that we can do as farmers, I think the onus is really on us to kind of show that, the best parts of our industry and … all the great things that happen on the farm."