University News for January 26, 2010

The manager of the Bruce D. Campbell Farm and Food Discovery Centre project says, displays being created for the new facility are designed to remain as fluid as possible.

Construction of the Bruce D. Campbell Farm and Food Discovery Centre, located at the University of Manitoba's Glenlea Research Station and part of the National Centre for Livestock and the Environment, officially began last month.

Project manager Wendy Molnar says the centre is intended to provide visitors of all ages, but primarily school children, up-to-date information about agriculture and where their food comes from.

Clip-Wendy Molnar-Bruce D. Campbell Farm and Food Discovery Centre:
We want the facility to be as active and to be growing long into the future.

We don't want the exhibits to remain static and so we have built in elements throughout the exhibits so that there'll be video displays where the information can be changed fairly easily.

We have a 'what's new' exhibit area so that we can promote the work of the research scientists at the university, so we can show the work that they're doing on an ongoing basis.

Probably one of the most important things to keep the centre fresh and up-to-date is the use of programming.

We hope to develop and actually we're starting to develop programs that are linked to school curriculums, linked to the research topics that are being explored on the research farm and in the laboratories in the faculty by our scientists and really hopefully encourage visitors to learn more about this work and how it relates eventually to their food that they eat on an everyday basis.

Molnar says the goal of the Farm and Food Discovery Centre is really to build a greater understanding of agriculture.

She notes the exhibit designs are just now being completed, they are expected to go out to tender within the next month or so and they'll hopefully be installed in the new facility by the fall of 2010.

For UniversityNews.Org, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

*University News is a presentation of the University of Manitoba's Faculty of Agricultural & Food Sciences