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Kyrsten’s Total Tattie Experience
Dr Kyrsten Black, SAC’s Dean of Centre in Aberdeen, was among the guest speakers at the recent launch of Totally Tatties, an education programme organised in the NE by the Royal Northern Countryside Initiative.
Speaking from her perspective as a soil scientist and someone involved in Higher Education, Kyrsten welcomed the programme and was particularly encouraged by the way it developed group working, supported literacy and numeracy and linked to diet and health. The launch took place in Strathcona House at the Rowett Institute of Health and Nutrition in Aberdeen and Kyrsten explained how group working was equally important amongst degree students just across the road at Craibstone.
Through the help of number of local businesses, Totally Tatties involves primary schools in Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire and Moray. By growing crops of potatoes the children develop cross curricular skills from maths and English to science and measurement. Two prizes, one of £150 for a project submission, complete with poster and another of £100 for the heaviest harvest, add extra interest.
This year thirty five schools have registered with nearly fifteen hundred pupils. Through sponsorship the entrants get pots, compost and the seed potato variety Olympus, a high yielding maincrop. They receive teaching packs and are each linked with a farmer adviser. RNCI had previously delivered the project on behalf of the Royal Highland Education Trust and decide to continue with it despite the los of funding previously available to RHET.