During the Year 9/10 Food Tech elective, “Tasting Timboon” we are exploring the wonderful flavours and products that are crafted by many creative producers around Timboon as part of the 12 Apostles Food Artisans Trail. We invited Caitlin Wurlod from Keayang Maar Vineyard into our classroom and she took our students on a journey learning about the grape harvest and wine production in their vine to wine family enterprise. After retiring from dairying, the business was established on Barry and Bernadette Wurlod’s property on the volcanic slopes of Keayang Maar in Dixie following holidays in Europe where they learnt about grape growing and wine production. Caitlin and Jerram Wurlod also assist with the daily operations and marketing for the vineyard and Caitlin explained that different grape types produce different wines with flavours dependent on the season, the fermentation process used and the age of the wine. The grapes are picked by hand in late March / early April and put into a crusher, then disstemmer with the juice squeezed out and the wine fermented for 10 days or longer, seasonally producing over 12,000 bottles of wine a year. Caitlin challenged our students to tell the story of the grapes, the who, why and how and to market the Shiraz, Pino Gris- white variety, Pinot Noir and Riesling grapes to potential buyers who could be wine drinkers, other wine makers and retailers by describing the grapes’ taste, appearance, production or source. After our students taste tested the grapes, we were very impressed with the marketing terms and descriptive outlines the students crafted. Shortly the students will cook with the wine by cooking the alcohol off but this leave the flavour of the wine intact and it will be used to simmer the meat in their casseroles. It is a ‘grape time of the year’, thanks Caitlin. “The Business Idea” is Unit One for our Year 11 VCE Business Management students and focuses on the motivations for starting a business, identifying business opportunities and the characteristics of successful business entrepreneurs. We encourage our students to look at local businesses and endeavours through the TAP so we undertook a field trip to 'A Little Bit of Sweet' in Timboon. Michelle Frantantaro, the business owner, described her previous experience owning and operating the Simpson general store / newsagency for 15 years before being casually employed at Berry World. Michelle did not think that she would have another store as she operated her lolly business from home, but an opportunity presented itself with a store in a central location in Timboon and Michelle could see a gap in the local market. The successful business has now been operating for five years and there is a real ‘Wow” factor when you walk through the doors, based on customer needs and interest – including the current favourites, snackable boxes, gift hampers, the Pick-n-mix, Burger Bubbles, Camel Balls and Pig Farts!! Thanks Michelle for an educational and delicious field trip! Our Year 5/6 students have been exploring the Civics and Citizenship topic, ‘Cultural capabilities’ and have been learning about migrants, asylum seekers and refugees. Students have been hearing personal stories about people and the reasons that they may want or need to move to Australia. Classroom discussions about refugees have taken place about positive and negative cultural stereotypes, the legalities of refugees, the misguided assumption that these people are often ‘boat people’ and our obligations as global citizens. To help contextualize this even more, we invited Kate Palmer and Hayley McCosh from the Settlement, Engagement and Transition Support Program (SETS) from South West Healthcare (SWHC) into the classroom to describe the human side of the often faceless masses of people we see in the media. Their role with SWHC involves meeting migrants and refugees and helping them gain access to the necessary services, schools, banking, employment, accommodation, translation services and support that they need. We explored the diversity of cultures and backgrounds in our classes and the cultural iceberg with only 10% of cultural differences readily apparent. Students were invited to meet refugees with a friendly smile, ask them to become involved in community activities and not to take anything for granted as they may have had difficult or different experiences before arriving in Australia. Thanks for helping us become better global citizens Kate and Hayley. Our new Year 9/10 Food Tech elective, “Tasting Timboon” is about exploring the wonderful flavours, products and treats that are produced around Timboon as part of the 12 Apostles Food Artisans Trail. During this elective, students will investigate and research the various businesses and we will invite guests in who will tell their story, describe their produce, explain social, ethical and sustainability considerations their business faces then, later that week, the students will craft a dish based on their produce. Our first guest was Heather Nicholls from Berry World who described the processes involved in preparing the strawberry mounds by wrapping them in plastic to eliminate weeds and provide drainage with the sides covered in dirt. Over 25,000 strawberry runners are soaked in organic fertilizer, then pushed in through a slit in the plastic in a process that takes 5 months from May onwards. The plants stay dormant until September when they start to shoot and, depending on sunlight, the caylx will start to produce fruit. There are 800 plants in each row with each healthy plant producing between 2-3 kg of strawberries that are picked, classed and sorted into punnets. Imperfect looking, but still flavoursome fruit is used in other Berry World products such as jams and wine with a pick-your-own option as well. The students will be making their own strawberry jam next week, can’t wait to taste it! River Detectives is an exciting education initiative of Catchment Management Authorities inspiring teachers and students to understand, appreciate and care for their local waterway through engaging, cross-curricular, citizen-science activities. Timboon P-12 School were approached by the River Detectives team to describe how this appreciation of our local waterways has filtered - deliberate pun intended - across our curriculum under the TAP banner. The story of Timboon’s implantation of the River Detectives program has been shared to help inspire other schools in the Corangamite CMA’s catchment area by capturing the shape, flavour and diversity of River Detectives at Timboon P-12. . https://www.riverdetectives.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Timboon-School-Story-Of-Change-2023.pdf Thank you to the CCMA for this opportunity to share our River Detectives story |
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