{"id":15952,"date":"2025-12-08T09:52:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T12:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/12\/08\/school-program-sowing-knowledge-of-native-prairie-plants-in-sask-classrooms\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T09:52:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T12:52:07","slug":"school-program-sowing-knowledge-of-native-prairie-plants-in-sask-classrooms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/12\/08\/school-program-sowing-knowledge-of-native-prairie-plants-in-sask-classrooms\/","title":{"rendered":"School program sowing knowledge of native prairie plants in Sask. classrooms"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Saskatoon\u00b7NewA class at Silverspring School in Saskatoon is one of 26 across the province taking part in the One School One Farm Shelterbelt Project. A non-profit pairs teachers and students with \u2018land partners\u2019 to help bring back native plants and the bees and butterflies that depend on them.One School One Farm brings kids, teachers and landowners together to collect and plant native Sask. seedsAishwarya Dudha  \u00b7 CBC News  \u00b7 Posted: Dec 08, 2025 6:00 AM EST | Last Updated: 31 minutes agoListen to this articleEstimated 5 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.Kastle Pher-teven Kershaw separates the seeds from a plant that\u2019s native to the Saskatchewan grasslands. (Aishwarya Dudha\/CBC News)In a classroom at Silverspring School in Saskatoon, little fingers gently clean seeds collected from native prairie plants.The sixth graders are learning about the land, its plants and the role they play in the ecosystem.Kastlepher-Teven Kershaw, 11, leans over a desk, gently rubbing a brittle seed head between his fingers.\u201cRight now I\u2019m sorting seeds and for this one all you have to do is crumble it with your fingers and the ones that turn into dust aren\u2019t seeds, but the harder ones are seeds,\u201d Kershaw said.Students are cleaning and sorting native flower seeds \u2014 Black-eyed Susans, goldenrod and more \u2014 some of which they helped collect earlier this fall at a nearby acreage.The class is one of 26 across the province taking part in the One School One Farm Shelterbelt Project, a non-profit that pairs teachers with \u2018land partners\u2019 so students can help bring back native plants and the bees and butterflies that depend on them.Kids surround Elizabeth Bekolay, executive director of the One School One Farm Shelterbelt Project, to learn about native plants, seeds and flowers and their benefits. (Aishwarya Dudha\/CBC News)\u2018We\u2019re part of nature\u2019Melanie Wilkinson, their teacher, first heard about the project through a land-based learning program known as Brightwater.\u201cI was interested in it because I just feel that the more the students have these authentic, lived, hands-on experiences that are relevant to here, it becomes just more part of who they are,\u201d Wilkinson said.The experience of collecting the seeds straight from the land, cleaning them and then going back to plant them next year gives the kids more than just textbook knowledge, she said.\u201cI think they\u2019re going to walk away and have a different perspective and realize that it\u2019s not just connecting with nature, it\u2019s like working with nature and bringing back what we need in nature.\u201dNative flower seeds, some of which students helped collect earlier this fall at an acreage. (Trevor Bothorel\/CBC News)Students sit on their desks, separating the seeds from the dirt, leaves and dried stems.\u201cThey\u2019re really fuzzy, and they\u2019re kind of sticky, too,\u201d Ivy Victoria Smith Windsor says.At another table, Dua Fatima focuses on the task, remarking that \u201cIt feels like a cloud or it feels like a dog, as if you\u2019re petting a dog.\u201dFatima was part of a group that went seed-collecting at the acreage of a land partner just outside Saskatoon.\u201cWe also found some like ladybugs and stuff and they were really pretty. We got to hold them and stuff and then it was just fun collecting the seeds,\u201d she said. Marget Ruth Vanthuyne, working on a handful of Black-eyed Susan seed heads, said she learned a lot on the field trip.\u201cWe learned about the ladybugs and we also learned about bees. There were a lot of bees when we went to the farm because the guy there had a beehive. So he taught us all about bees,\u201d she said.Dua Fatima said she really enjoyed going out and collecting the seeds and getting to touch ladybugs.  (Aishwarya Dudha\/CBC News)The projectElizabeth Bekolay, executive director of the One School One Farm Shelterbelt Project, said the organization pairs landowners and teachers for long-term relationships built around community planting projects.Since the idea first sparked in 2018, the project has grown from three pilot sites to 26 partnerships across the province, Bekolay said.Partners have planted more than 10,000 individual plants, including trees, shrubs, wildflowers and grasses, representing dozens of native species.\u201cWe have partners that have acreages. We have partners that are First Nations farmers and conservation organizations. And the classrooms are spread from Indian Head up to Spruce Home,\u201d Bekolay said.Biodiversity loss and climate change are causing a dire situation for the ecosystem, she said.\u201cI think we need to get into an era where ecological literacy is a very important part of our education system.\u201dElizabeth Bekolay is the executive director of the One School One Farm Shelterbelt Project. She said the organization needs funding to be able to hire more staff and continue the project across Saskatchewan.  (Aishwarya Dudha\/CBC News)Bekolay is the only staff member at the project, working half-time.\u201cI\u2019m coordinating all the seed collections, all the seed sorting, all the seed starting, all the planting days across the whole province,\u201d she said. \u201cI need to be multiplied.\u201dShe said the organization is looking for funds to hire more staff in places like Regina, Saskatoon and Prince Albert.No flowers, no beesThe seeds the students are working with are all from native plants \u2014 species that evolved on the Prairies over thousands of years alongside wild bees.\u201cIn this province, there are about 325 wild bee species or native bee species that we\u2019ve recorded here,\u201d said Cory Sheffield, curator of invertebrate zoology at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum.\u201cThose bees and the plants that they visit were here long before we had agriculture in the province,\u201d he said. \u201cSo many bees will visit many types of plants. But we do have many bees in the province that are \u2026 they require the pollen from, say, one species of plant or one genus of plant.\u201dSheffield said native seed mixes like the ones handled by these students are a \u201cgood strategy\u201d to support wild pollinators.\u201cI think the absence of wildflowers is one of the main drivers of bee declines within given areas,\u201d he said.\u201cBasically the theory is if you provide more of these plants or flowers to bees, especially the flowers that they will use, you do benefit them.\u201dNorth America\u2019s natural grasslands are at risk of being lost to agriculture and urban development, so projects like One School One Farm Shelterbelt are important for the survival of those habitats, Sheffield said.ABOUT THE AUTHORAishwarya Dudha is a reporter for CBC Saskatchewan based in Saskatoon. She specializes in immigration, justice and cultural issues and elevating voices of vulnerable people. She has previously worked for CBC News Network and Global News.  You can email her at aishwarya.dudha@cbc.ca <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saskatoon\u00b7NewA class at Silverspring School in Saskatoon is one of 26 across the province taking part in the One School One Farm Shelterbelt Project. A non-profit pairs teachers and students with \u2018land partners\u2019 to help bring back native plants and the bees and butterflies that depend on them.One School One Farm brings kids, teachers and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15953,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,123,1],"tags":[116,122],"class_list":["post-15952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-indigenous","category-saskatchewan","category-uncategorized","tag-indigenous","tag-saskatchewan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}