agriculture building adventures

The University of Saskatchewan's Agriculture Building, located on Campus Drive, is a terrific location for an educational outing with your child.

The beautiful atrium and conservatory is home to a peaceful little waterfall, lush vegetation, a horse statue, colorful banners, sturdy chairs, marble walls and plenty of space to run around and explore.

Once you and your little person have had enough of the main floor, proceed in the glass elevator up to the second floor. We watched the elevator go up and down for several minutes, which resulted in my son saying "down" for the first time. ("Dooooowww.")

On the second floor, you will want to stop and say "hello" to the man on the bench. Baby J was quite intrigued by this fellow. They had quite a lengthy conversation.  

If you meander through the hallways in both directions, you will discover several educational displays with plenty of opportunities to practice agricultural vocabulary words. A few of the pictures that really intrigued my son were the ones of cows, horses, turkeys, tractors, trucks, plants and flowers.

One of the halls features a display case of plastic food. My son and I talked at great length about the case that contained all things made from wheat. 

There are floor-to-ceiling murals that mobile little ones can walk right up to, like this big mural of Earth. 

If you visit on a week day between 11:30 a.m. and 4 p.m., you can also take in the exhibits at the Kenderdine Art Gallery, also located on the second floor as you come off the elevator. The Kenderdine Gallery is home to a permanent art collection of the University of Saskatchewan and also brings in exhibitions from other places.

Everything inside the Agricutlure Building is stroller accessible and free (with the exception of parking). There were not change tables in the restrooms that I visited, but there was plenty of floor and counter space.

You can take a bus to campus. Or, underground parking is available if you keep driving past the Agriculture Building on Campus Drive and take a left on Science Place at the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Research Centre in the area marked "Parkade Entrance" on this map. Once in the parkade, park near and enter the door marked "South Elevator and Information."  The elevator through these doors will take you directly into the Agriculture Building atrium.

The parking rate is $1 per half-hour for a maximum of $10 on weekdays and a maximum of $3 on weekends. I spent $3 for a fun, almost two-hour, indoor excursion, on a very cold day, which I thought was reasonable.

Once you are inside, there are walkways that take you to a number of different buildings on campus, so it is a great place to go for a long indoor walk.

There are numerous adventures for little ones on the U of S campus. We will be featuring other university adventures in the coming weeks.