Our Year 9 English classes have been investigating memoirs and eulogies, so to help bring these topics to life – purposeful pun – we invited ex Timboon student, and retired Baptist Minister, Malcolm Ward into the classroom to help students better understand what goes into crafting and delivering a eulogy. Malcolm described his childhood as one of 6 children who lived near Port Campbell, growing up on a dairyfarm and travelling to school on the Number One bus. He asked students if Baringa was still published, and shared an early copy of Baringa with a photo of himself inside the front cover. As the eldest son, it was expected that he would continue to work as a dairy farmer, but when he was 40 he was challenged to try surfing at Port Campbell and nearly died. Found unconscious in the water, he woke up in the Warrnambool hospital three hours later and the nursing staff informed him that he should be dead. This lead to a major career change and Malcolm worked as a Baptist Minister for 25 years and a School Councillor at Cobden Tech for 10 years. Malcolm answered the students’ questions, explaining that eulogies should be drafted to tell the story of someone’s life outlining their relationships, who they were, what they are remembered for and should honor and celebrate the life of someone who has passed away. He challenged students to write their own eulogy and to consider how they want to be remembered, citing Neil Daniher’s funeral as a powerful example of a wonderful tribute to someone who will be fondly remembered by many people, "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.". We are also grateful to Maryanne Pulli Vogels who has provided some powerful insights into crafting eulogies for our English teachers. Thank you Maryanne and Malcolm .
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Waiting…waiting...waiting! We are excited to announce that we are parents! The Year 3/4 students have been learning about mushrooms and fungi whilst diligently watering and watching their mushroom kits containing compost and mycelium as part of the Mushrooms in Schools program. It’s been interesting to learn about mushrooms and to see the way the three kits in the three Year 3/4 class rooms have all developed in different ways Ready to be inspired?! Is there a young Steve Jobs, Ben Lexcen, Steven Barlett, Nikola Tesla or Professor Fiona Wood amongst us? Our Year 5/6 ICT - Information and Communications Technology students have been exploring how digital technologies are used to solve problems and they have been working on innovative inventions that solve an identified problem experimenting with some computer-aided design. The classes are currently working hard on their ideas and innovations to be pitched to a panel of industry judges for our very own Timboon Shark Tank experience. Students will pitch their ideas to our three judges, Sherri Symons from Wool Grow Australia, consulting engineer, Josh McKenzie and innovative dairy farmer, Peter Doolan, to determine who best meets the brief to solve an identified problem. We will also have a Peoples' Choice as well as Judges' award so you will be able to cast your vote during the event. Students, parents and community members are welcome to the Timboon School library on this Monday 5th June from 12.00pm – 1.30pm to see our budding entrepreneurs in action. Will you meet a budding Jacques Cousteau or Henry Ford, come and see! Explore the future with these potential entrepreneurs and innovators! Everyone welcome During their Economics and Business unit, our Year 8 Humanities students are investigating the changing nature of work in contemporary Australia and exploring predictions about the future of work. We were able to TAP into two local businesses, The Vet Group and Timboon Motors, to learn about workforce changes in qualifications, skills required, what the job entails, training, wages, hours, conditions, job satisfaction, community expectation and technological changes including AI. At The Vet Group (TVG), Erin Gardner described her role and the changes she has experienced as a veterinarian including improvements in anaesthetics and modifications in medication with more options to pursue specialisations in their field after university. Erin explained that technological advances allowed for in house testing to help diagnose animals using blood tests, x rays and ultrasound as these were previously outsourced leading to delays in treatment. Josh Drayton's role at Timboon Motors started when he was in Year 9 working part time on the petrol pumps and has evolved into the Workshop and Service Department Manager. The necessary qualifications and training in car servicing has changed, from weeks at TAFE in Warrnambool supported by days at Holden in Melbourne, to online modules coupled with more on the job training as you are learning something new every day. The introduction of electric vehicles has meant more complex service, technical and safety options are employed with diagnostic tools progressing from physically running tests to using scan tools for assessment. Timboon Motors also offer traditional services, like filling up customers cars to provide a service that differs from other businesses and whilst being a multifaceted operation with tools, car maintenance, panel beating with towing services and a bus. While both businesses were very different, it was interesting to see the similarities including ongoing study and using technology for operator ease and safety. Thanks to Erin and Josh for this experience to help reinforce the learning that our students had undertaken in the classroom. As well as investigating the paddock to plate journey of beef, sheep and dairy products, our Year 3/4 students have conducted their own research into mushrooms. Patiently watching, watering and willing, students have been learning about marvellous mushrooms, their structure, different types and how these interesting fungi grow. Watch this space! Our Prep students had a fantastic hands-on cultural learning experience today with Leanne Sumner from Cooriejong. Students learnt greetings in language, explored the many uses of gum leaves, discovered how to find the emu in the sky and learnt how this connects to when emus lay eggs. They also enjoyed seeing a real emu egg, learning weaving techniques and trying traditional instruments including the didgeridoo and clapping sticks. A wonderful opportunity for students to learn about and engage with Indigenous culture and traditions. Thank you Leanne Leaving their classrooms, Year 3/4 students travelled to see where an actual Paddock to Plate journey could begin. Students learnt that as well as them staying safe on farm, they had to help keep the farm and its animals safe, by following biosecurity measures including stepping in a footbath to help protect our Australia livestock from the spread of diseases. We visited the beef and prime lamb property of Richard and Marilyn Gristede, Caragoola, where they learnt about sheep and wool (Roger Mifsud), farm maps (Marilyn Gristede), animal nutrition (Joy Coulson – Reid Stockfeeds) and beef farming and traceability (Richard Gristede and Tim Nowell – Nutrien Ag Solutions). Over the lunchbreak, Roger demonstrated the techniques used when shearing a sheep and described the processes involved to keep the sheep calm and the shearer safe when shearing. At Ash and Michelle Gristede's dairy farm, Bayview, students investigated the technology used on farm (Michelle Gristede), the dairy plant (Ash Gristede), animal health (Erin Gardner - The Vet Group), and effluent recycling (Miah Mungean and Riley Chamberlain - Bayview). Georgie Place from Lactalis described the milk pathway from Gristede’s dairy to their Cobden processing plant and introduced the products produced by Lactalis, including the Western Star Spreadable Butter that is donated to our Brekkie Club. Students were then challenged with questions posed by the guest presenters at the conclusion of their workshop sessions and Georgie shared Bega Snack on the Go packs with students. Prior to their return to Timboon, the students watched Riley and Michelle milk cows on the rotary dairy while they enjoyed their snacks. Thank you to everyone involved, what a wonderful hands-on way to learn about the science all around us! Our Year 1/2 students have been learning about seasons and changes all around us so we thought we’d TAPify their investigations and take them on a field trip to Brad and Becc Couch’s farm at Brucknell. Brad and Becc explained that theirs was a seasonal farm, meaning that their 350 cows calve and produce milk according to the grass curve. The Couch’s cows produce milk when the most grass can be directly grassed by the cows with excess seasonal grass preserved in spring, as silage or hay to be feed to the herd when there is less feed available. They have just started calving after drying their cows off so that the cows, farm and Couch’s themselves could all have a rest before calving started again. Jackey Tejano from ProviCo, described what happens to the Couch’s milk when it leaves farm and explained that the milk is dried into powder to be used for products such as yoghurt, ice cream, nutritional powders, chocolates, dried milk products and animal milk powders. Brad and the students toured the dairy hub learning about the history of the farm, farm layout, old dairy, new calf sheds, old / new farm equipment, and the herringbone dairy with stall gates where some of the teachers were ‘milked’. Becc described seasonal changes including what the cows were doing, calves, water, grass, hay, silage, plantations and tracks. To reinforce their learning about changes, the students then had to identify which changes were Natural, Managed or Constructed with some very interesting conversations taking place. The field trip concluded with Becc supplying some Haigh’s Chocolates with a quick quiz on farm facts. Thanks Brad, Becc, Ruby and Jacky, we learnt heaps! The Year 3/4 students at Timboon P-12 School are surrounded by dairy, sheep and beef enterprises but do they know much about mushrooms and fungi? As part of their Paddock to Plate investigations the creative teachers decided to take up the challenge issued by the Australian Mushroom Growers' Association (AMGA) and introduced their students to the Mushrooms in Schools program. The mushroom kits were assembled once the mycelium had developed in the compost and when the compost had turned white, not brown. The students are tendering to their kits by spraying them with water and are working through the lesson plans and resources as their mushrooms grow ready to be harvested in a few weeks. An introductory survey was conducted to gauge students’ knowledge prior to their investigations and harvesting. Some students were not aware that mushrooms are not a fruit, or a vegetable – mushrooms are fungi and belong to a separate food kingdom to fruits and veggies? What else will they learn and will they enjoy eating mushrooms? |
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