Before the Plate (1 hr 30 min) attempts to close the gap in perception between the urban consumer and farming in Canada. Modern consumers are increasingly interested in where and how their food gets to them, but accurate information isn’t always easy to come by and often feels out of reach. Before the Plate follows young farmers and industry experts in order to show the general population what a modern Canadian farm operation looks like, and answer the most pressing questions consumers have about their food.

Have you seen the Before the Plate documentary? Are you wanting to use it as a resource in your classroom? We have developed a comprehensive, curriculum-linked Documentary Viewing Guide for Grades 9-12 students that meets learning outcomes in Science, Social Studies, Health, Careers, PAA and more! Make sure you download the Before the Plate - Teacher Guide first to access the documentary, answer key, and for more information on the resource!

Have you seen the Before the Plate documentary? Are you wanting to use it as a resource in your classroom? We have developed a comprehensive, curriculum-linked Documentary Viewing Guide for Grades 9-12 students that meets learning outcomes in Science, Social Studies, Health, Careers, PAA and more! This resource includes full viewing access to the Before the Plate documentary.

Students will gain a basic understanding of who farmers are and what they do.

Students will use agriculture and hunger as a vehicle to understand critical thinking and problem solving skills.

Students learn how the greenhouse effect is related to global warming and how global warming impacts our planet, including global climate change. Extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and how we react to these changes are the main points of focus of this lesson.

This video shows an example of urban agriculture in Montreal using greenhouses on the roof of a building. This shows a great example of how agriculture and food production can take many forms.

Due to the region’s extreme climate, the Yellowknife Co-op relied on imported produce from the South. This video shows the use of Growcer units to allow isolated communities to produce fresh produce year-round.

Students observe demonstrations, and build and evaluate simple models to understand the greenhouse effect and the role of increased greenhouse gas concentration in global warming.

Students learn about the advantages and disadvantages of the greenhouse effect. They construct their own miniature greenhouses and explore how their designs take advantage of heat transfer processes to create controlled environments. They record and graph measurements, comparing the greenhouse indoor and outdoor temperatures over time. Students are also introduced to global issues such as greenhouse gas emissions and their relationship to global warming.

The following resource contains the external assets (or resources) to accompany the Sask DLC Field Crop Production B10 / B20 / B30 courses. Please note that this is not the content of the course, but the external assets used to support and deliver it. 

"The Shand Greenhouse has grown and distributed over 12.5 million seedlings to date.

Various groups, environmental agencies and our customers plant our seedlings each year. The seedlings are mainly used to:

Help our rural customers to establish shelterbelts on their own properties
Help create habitat for wildlife in conservation projects
To grow the seedlings year-round, we use waste heat from the adjoining Shand Power Station. This heats the Shand Greenhouse and allows us to offset our emissions generated by the burning of fossil fuels."