About 120 Grade 4 and 5 students from Unity Public School and St. Peter’s School in Unity and Cut Knife School in Cut Knife attended a Progressive Agriculture Safety Day May 20, organized by ADM Agri-Industries of Lloydminster.
The safety day was held at the Unity Community Centre parking lot in Unity.
There were eight stations set up, with fire safety, gun safety and equipment safety as just some of the topics. Other topics covered included animal safety and propane safety.
ADM initiated the event several years ago as part of their ongoing reinforcement of their core value in safety. Their intent is to contribute to the agriculture industry, maintaining its life span as well as making farms safer.
This age group is targeted because these students will soon be turning 12 and starting to operate equipment in their farm operations, or possibly other places in their environment. Children don’t see potential hazards largely due to lack of experience working with the various items that were part of the day’s safety training. As well some children do not have experience in any aspect of the agriculture industry and the sessions present some good lessons for students.
Some of the equipment appears “fun” and “looks like a great place to play,” however past accident scenarios paint a much different picture and it’s only through education and awareness that children recognize the dangers involved.
Demonstrating grain safety showed it only takes six seconds to become partially buried and only 12 seconds to become completely engulfed in grain dumping. Students had the task of retrieving a disk buried in a large bucket of grain, showing just how difficult it is to pull something out of the mass of grain surrounding the object, which drove home the message of the impact of this weight of grain around a human body.
Larry Budd and Steven Ireland thoroughly demonstrated the impact a tractor bucket has by placing a watermelon underneath the bucket and having students count down until the bucket dropped, totally destroying the melon and leaving behind only mush. Students stood with eyes wide, realizing from the information provided by the JayDee AgTech staff how quickly a human would be crushed by such an accident.
All instructors clearly pointed out the safety measures their stations were presenting as well as engaging students by hands-on demonstrations. Children were inquisitive, participating by answering questions at each station.
Some comments given by students were “wow, I didn’t realize…” or “I didn’t know that would happen” or even “It’s hard to believe that something as small as grain in a large amount could be so hard to get out of.”
Unity Credit Union and BMO staff volunteered to assist with various stations, moving students from one station to the next as well as serving lunch, cooked and provided by Unity Family Foods.
