Today our VCAL Literacy students were joined by chef, dairy farmer, tourism tour operator and entrepreneur, Anne Rosolin as they learn about real life issues and potential career opportunities. Anne described her pathway from growing up on a self sufficient beef farm, through secondary school, where she was told that she would fail, to Gordon Technical College, to travelling and working overseas as a farmer and chef, then becoming a dairy farmer and now as a tourism operator. She outlined that these varied experiences helped shape her and that it was important to take opportunities as they presented themselves. She discussed her holistic approach to life, the farm and hobbies and the considered decision to add the new business to provide a diversified income stream. Her current role combines food, dairy and tourism which are elements that Anne enjoys and are combined in her new business Great Ocean Road Paddock 2 Plate Farm Tours. Anne regaled the class with examples of her experiences and the kinds of encounters she wants to provide for her guests including making scones and butter, experiencing seasonal life on the farm and enjoying produce from local food artisans. What an interesting and creative local businesswoman! To conclude their studies of micro-organisms, yesterday the Year 5/6 students hosted baker, and owner of Jane Dough, Will Jane. Will described his career path from work experience in Melbourne to learning from and working with bakers in France, England, Italy, India, Byron Bay and other parts of Australia before setting up his own wholesale bakery in Warrnambool that produces breads, pastries and donuts. He described the importance of the sour dough starter in the baking of his sour dough loaves and students could see and smell the difference in the live starter and the dry commercial yeast. Students learnt that while the dry yeast was quicker to use, the starter had more flavour as it contains a fermented mixture of flour and water, and a colony of micro-organisms including yeast and lactobacillus bacteria. Will’s bread takes 3 days to make as on the first day Will feeds the starter and on the second day, he mixes it, adds salt, proves it for 4 to 5 hours, shapes it then leaves in in the fridge overnight before baking it on the third day. We were surprised to learn that Will had kept this starter going for 4½ years and it is fed 4 litres of water and 4 kgs of flour everyday which results in approximately 100 kg of bread dough, that is 120 loaves a day! As they examined and tasted the sour dough, hot cross buns and croissants students could see the holes in the bread that were the result of the yeast feeding off the sugar that was produced by the yeast microbes. Jane Dough products are available from the bakery in the Coles carpark in Warrnambool, regional markets and local retailers including The Corner Store. What a delicious way to learn about micro-organisms, thanks Will! A feature of the transition program at Timboon P-12 School is our annual event, Taste of Timboon. This is targeted towards new Year Prep parents and students and families of students in Year 6 as they are invited to transition to the Year 7-12 Senior campus. We are proud of the involvement of the TAP across our P-12 School and this evening was an opportunity to showcase our exciting curriculum demonstrating how the TAP harnesses the energy and expertise of our dynamic food production and food processing industry through a multilayered partnership across our region. Student volunteers and teachers described their curricular activities and how they are woven into an enriching and inclusive curriculum with creative, innovative, applied learning opportunities. During first term our Year 9 students were investigating ecosystems and learning how bees are impacted by changes in their environment as part of their Melittology studies. Students had to explore an issue and produce a poster to demonstrate their learning about topics such as loss of habitat, human use of pesticides on plants, weeds and grasses, extreme weather and seasonal changes and pathogens / parasites. Planned for 2020, an update of the TAP was presented to Timboon P-12 teachers and then to Timboon School Council members. The presentation described the origins and history of the TAP celebrating that the community partnerships had been evolving for over 9 years with 494 people volunteering their time to work with students or provide PD for staff since it started in August 2012. As teachers are professional ‘plate spinners’ the presentation described how the TAP could help achieve curriculum goals and applied learning opportunities such as teaching about cause and effect, consequences, connecting community, implementing change, storytelling, STEM, presenting a report, percentage / ratio, critical thinking skills, using metalanguage, social responsibility, coding, teamwork, leadership opportunities, career awareness and contextualized learning. How do those dishes stack up! A biological focus of the Year 7 Science program is on soil food webs and students learn they are groups of organisms that range in size from bacteria to fungi and includes protozoa, nematodes, micro – arthropods, worms and beetles. Students’ task was to design a food web that demonstrated how a food web improves soil structure and is impacted by larger organisms such as plants, larger animals and humans. This task is often included in the Hermitage Plant Science competition but it is very useful on it's own as the organism cards make great visual learning tools. TAPify – verb
To conclude their studies about the importance of bees in an ecosystem and the fragility of their environment, our Year 9 students were given the opportunity to harvest honey contained in frames from a beehive. Students could see how the bees had built combs on the frames and uncapped the wax with hot knives to gain access to the honey. The honeycombs were then placed in a honey spinner where centrifugal force was created to release the honey from the waxy honeycombs. After draining through a sieve to remove any wax, the golden honey was poured into containers. What a delicious way to learn about ecosystems. |
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March 2024
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