Farmers Market Field Trips

Field trips to the St. Catharines Famers Market bring learning to life and cultivate curiosity with hands-on learning.

Grow young minds with Farmers Market Field Trips

We are currently booking field trips for Fall 2025: September to November.

Field Trip Highlights

Field Trips are free.
Field Trips run for 1 hour and offered on Thursdays.
Programs are ideal for students ranging from kindergarten to Grade 12.
Capacity limited to 24 students.
Meet your guide at the Field Trips sign at Market Square (91 King Street).
School groups receive a snack from from a local vendor.
Field Trips are subject to change.

Programs

The City of St. Catharines is collaborating with AgScape to offer field trips to the St. Catharines Farmers Market with engaging, hands-on, curriculum-based lessons guided by certified educational professionals.

Through energetic discussions and hands-on exercises, students will learn about various aspects of our food system, including a career component exploring the range of interesting opportunities to build a rewarding career.

Kindergarten to Grade 2

I Spy! Local Food

What are your favourite foods? Where does our food come from?

Through stories, games and sharing ideas, we’ll explore the wide variety of foods available to us here in Ontario and then hop over to the market and use our senses to play an exciting game of ‘I Spy!’ together.

Kindergarten Curriculum Connections

Belonging and Contributing: Understanding community and the ways in which people contribute to the world around them.
Self-Regulation and Well-Being: Respecting differences and feelings of others; learning about nutritional health and wellness
Problem Solving and Innovating: Exploring the world through natural curiosity in ways that engage the mind, senses and the body that help establish a of love of learning.

Grades 1-2 Curriculum Connections

Health and Physical Education: Making Food Choices, Social & Nutritional considerations when making food decisions.
Food and Nutrition: Understanding food systems and foods from various cultures are part of making food decisions.
Healthy Relationships: Exploring communication and respect for diversity as it relates to making food decisions.

Grades 3-6

Taking Charge of Your Food Choices

What does it mean for a food to be “healthy” or “local”? What tools can we use to help us understand the food options in front of us?

Through hands-on activities and sharing ideas, we’ll learn more about how to make confident food decisions and then head over to the market to go on an exciting scavenger hunt that will have youth asking questions to the vendors and working together to solve the ultimate market mystery.

Curriculum Connections

Health and Physical Education: Making Food Choices, Social & Nutritional considerations when making food decisions.
Food and Nutrition: Understanding how food marketing (flyers, packaging, labels, nutrition tables, colours, etc.) impact our food decisions.

Grades 7-12

Local Food and You

What does the word “local” really mean when it comes to our food systems here in Ontario?

Depending on things like location, season and which foods are readily available, the definition can shift. Learning how to navigate making food decisions includes understanding where your food comes from and identifying what factors are most important to each of us.

We'll explore these concepts and help students develop food awareness and confidence in the role they play – every day – in Canada’s food system and then together we’ll explore the potential future roles they might play in the food system by meeting vendors at the market who have chosen various forms of entrepreneurship as their own career pathway.

Curriculum Connections

Health and Physical Education: Making Food Choices, Social & Nutritional considerations when making food decisions.
Foods and Nutrition: Exploring factors (social, emotional, ethical, etc.) that impact food decision-making.
Career Studies: Identifying potential post-secondary pathways connected to food, agriculture and, specifically, entrepreneurship as demonstrated by the various vendors at the market.

About AgScape

AgScape is a registered charity that brings the fast-paced and innovative world of agriculture and food to educators and students across Ontario. Programs and resources are designed to expand students’ understanding of the modern food system to help them make informed decisions about they foods they eat, the choices they make, and the breadth of career opportunities that are available to them.

Planning your Field Trip

The Farmers Market is open 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursdays from February to December.
The Farmers Market offers Field Trips from September to November and April to June.
The Farmers Market offers a diverse selection of vendors who grow and produce meats, fruits, veggies baked goods and more.
Check out the Foodland Ontario Availability Guide Find out what's in season.
The Farmers Market is located in Downtown St. Catharines at Market Square (91 Church Street).
Paid lot parking is available at Market Square as well as nearby on-street parking.
Niagara Regional Transit buses run to and from Downtown St. Catharines on a regular schedule. Market Square is about a six-minute walk from the St. Catharines Downtown Bus Terminal.
Market Square is beside St. Catharines City Hall (50 Church Street) and the Office of the Mayor and across the street from the central branch of St. Catharines Public Library (54 Church Street) and the St. Catharines Courthouse (59 Church Street).