Four students from Timboon P-12 accepted an invitation issued by Matt Porter from the Neil Porter Legacy to explore the exciting world for young women in trades and tech industries recently attending the Trade Fit Expo at the Convention Centre in Melbourne. Molly, Stevie, Cloey and Ava joined 32 other female students from the Warrnambool region who experienced hands on activities, tech displays and learnt about well paid careers in traditionally male dominated areas. The students learnt about career pathways in industries including building, electrical, automotive, aviation, plumbing, marine, robotics, gaming, cyber security and more. Many generous businesses contributed to provide a goodie bag, gifts and vouchers and also covered the cost of the bus meaning there there was cost to the students. Huge thanks to K9000 Dog Wash, Midfield Meats, The Meat Barn, NAB, Carter Group, Tasweld, WestVic Staffing Solutions, Pacific Materials and Handling,  Wannon Water's Ripple Effect grants and Matt Porter.

As a TAP applied learning opportunity, the Year 1/2 students are currently investigating narratives and how to come up with ideas for stories. Students were introduced to Great Ocean Ducks via a clip about ‘Australia’s Best Drives’ featuring Great Ocean Ducks and owners, Greg and Jodi Clarke. The Year 1/2 students then hosted Greg who described his background, the business, journalism and how to write a story around a problem with the aim of writing their own duck-based or farming community stories. Students learnt that Greg and Jodi started out with 30 ducks and now farm 2,000 Pekin and Aylesbery ducks aided by their Kelpie and Maremma dogs that keep the birds safe from predators including foxes. Greg explained that their goal was to rear happy, free range ducks that could eat grass, snails, worms, wheat, apples and strawberries whilst walking from the paddocks as that helps build flavor in the birds. The business has been profiled in the ‘Just Duck’ cook book and the birds are sold to top end restaurants in Melbourne. Greg explained that he always loved writing which lead to his role as a journalist in the Weekly Times and other publications whilst challenging students to write about what they know and to do lots of drafts of their work. Students got the message that the best stories are those that are different and interesting to an audience. Inspiring stories, thanks Greg!

Operation ‘All Mixed Up’ - ‘Garden Gurus’ was a great success with our Year 1/2 science students producing shower steamers / bath bombs supported by the Year 7/8 Garden Gurus class. After the mixing activity the junior students recorded the steps with procedural writing accounts that demonstrated their understanding of the steps involved. On Mothers Day, our students then gifted their Mums the fragrant results of their mixing endeavours with both solid and liquid ingredients combined to produce the lavender scented gifts. Happy Mothers Day!

Recently our Corangamite Trade Training VET Cert 11 Hospitality students hosted SouthWest TAFE butcher, Ben Thomas. Ben described his career path as a butcher with his own business and his current role as a TAFE trainer with a focus on safety and work place standards for the trainees he accredits. He stressed the importance of working with the proper equipment and how to take care of the knives in the students’ knife sets that include a chef, boning, paring, turning and bread knife and a sharpening steel. In class Ben demonstrated how to transport and use knives safely, the care of knives, how to sharpen and use the appropriate knife for the right task as part of the students’ UOC ‘Use food preparation equipment’ certification. He demonstrated how to bone out a chicken and the students really enjoyed completing this task using the resulting cuts to make a crumbed chicken breast into a chicken schnitzel sandwich for lunch. Our students from Terang College, Mortlake P-12, Camperdown College, Lavers Hill P-12 and Timboon P-12 were fortunate to have this expertise demonstrated by an acredited trainer and experienced butcher, thanks Gabby and Ben.

​During the Food Tech elective, Food and Agriculture, the Year 7/8 students are also delving into the wonderful array of native foods and flavours as they investigate the “Foodie” component of the Hermitage Research Facility’s Schools Plant Science Competition. As students are tasked with creating, or finding an existing recipe that features Australian bush tucker as the hero of the dish, they first had to begin to understand the taste and flavour of some native foods. Native spices, honey and some edible insects were taste tested by the students who later provided sensory evaluations on the 12 items describing how the tucker looked, smelt and tasted. Watch this space to see our students work their way through a design brief and choose a native food or dish to create!

We were recently invited by Dr John Cripps Clark, a senior science lecturer at Deakin University, to introduce the TAP model to his Primary Science and Technology Education students and cohost a zoom seminar. These students are implementing a sequence of science, design and technologies lessons, investigating science and technologies pedagogies including higher order thinking and reasoning, creativity, imagination and developing resources for their contemporary primary science classrooms. During the seminar students learnt about the background and implementation of the TAP and a variety of lessons, topics and partnerships created for junior students were showcased. The students were then challenged to consider what industries, organisations, or people that they could TAP into in their schools' area and what relevant curriculum outcomes these people or organisations could help provide. Resulting discussions included visiting a local theatre company to learn about light and shadow and a regional refinery to better understand heat and changes in matter. It was great experience to help teachers understand how they can TAP into their own communities. Thanks for the opportunity John!   

A feature of the TAP is the inclusion of real life applied learning opportunities and we took our Year 9/10 Aerodynamics and Flight Science elective students to the Cobden airfield to meet pilot, Peter Rohan, from Rohan Flying Services to help our students better understand the principles of flight. Peter explained the features and controls used to fly a plane and he demonstrated the cockpit instruments used to inform the flight path, control the pitch, roll and yaw of the aircraft. The importance of an aerodynamic design, the need to reduce drag and use of materials that made the aircraft as light, yet strong as possible in order to make gains in either payload or passengers in flight were also discussed. Students could compare and contrast the differences in a G.A. Fatman crop duster, a twin engine aircraft Comanche and a single engine Piper Arrow. Peter encouraged students who were interested in flying to learn as much as they could and get practical experience around airfields or working with or talking to pilots. We are so fortunate that we live in such a supportive environment with industry and community people prepared to share their expertise and experience with us to help our students learn. Thanks Peter​