KI student Jillian Anderson was recently profiled in her local newspaper, The Parkland Review, from Tisdale, Saskatchewan, about her summer experiences.
She's working on a research farm, and is applying her knowledge integration (KI) skills in communication, design, technology, and problem solving.
Agriculture has faced many challenges recently with extreme weather and changes in worldwide marketing trends, and the ability to adapt is essential. Stewart Brandt, Research Manager at the Northeast Agricultural Research Farm (NARF) said, "This is the direction we're going -- to survive in the future we're going to have to integrate the knowledge from a lot of disciplines, some of which have nothing to do with what we think of as traditional agriculture."
Jillian said, "Part of what I've learned from working specifically with NARF is that an important part of doing research is making sure it's accessible to the people that need it. Scientists doing research will often hone in on their research, write their academic paper, make lots of important discoveries and learn lots of important things, but if it's not made accessible to the farmer and it's not translated for them it's going to be difficult for those discoveries and that information to be useful."
The article concludes that Jillian is "one of the next generation that will help keep Western Canada the Breadbasket of the World that it has been for many generations."
Great work, Jillian!
Do KI students have the summer off? No -- they have the summer "on" applying their KI skills!