Inspired by the Year 7/8 2022 Community Connections class’ publications of local residents’ stories, Heytesbury and District Landcare Network (HDLN) approached the TAP to help record the oral histories of peoples’ recollections of the Curdies River. Tonight, prior to bringing the Year 9 Humanities students on a field trip to the Curdies Estuary on Wednesday, Carolyn and Andrea scoped the location and determined where the groups would go for break away sessions with our guest presenters and where they would walk after the recent blue / green alga bloom, heavy rainfall, and minor flooding around the river mouth. It’s a tough gig, but someone had to do it….. The Year 7 Cows Create Careers (CCC) class welcomed veterinarian, Zoe Vogels, from Vogels Farms, into their classroom to help them understand calf health and nutrition as they prepare to host two calves at school for three weeks. The students learnt about common calf diseases and how to monitor their calves daily to identify sick calves by checking the calves’ noses, eyes, ears, legs, bellies, tails, food and bedding. Zoe described how calves’ stomachs develop, what healthy calves need; including clean water, a constant feeding regime, milk powder mixed at the right rate, fibre and pellets, good housing and the importance of hygiene in calf rearing. Students leant that a zoonosis is an animal disease that can be transmitted to humans and stressed the importance of washing hands, wearing ‘calf clothes’ and using gloves as Salmonella can exist in a calf’s saliva for 30 days after an infection. We very fortunate to have this expertise available to help us bring the Dairy Australia CCC competition to life to better help students understand the science behind rearing calves and how to turn a calf into a healthy cow. As our Year 9/10 AgHort students are investigating animal production systems, we asked Ben Boyd from Ridley Agriproducts to describe how farmers economically feed their animals to optimize animal health and production goals. Ben described his career path from a local dairy farm, to university whilst playing cricket in Melbourne and then working for Ridley’s for the past 20 years formulating feed rations to enhance animals’ health and production. Using chickens as an example, Ben described how chickens needed different feed requirements for every stage of their lives and compared the feed conversation ratios of chickens and pigs. As a ruminant specialist, Ben discussed the requirements of dairy cattle from heifers to lactating cows and the way their requirements changed according to their lactation curve. Ben and the students then worked through a ration sheet to determine a cow’s diet with students providing input about a cow’s size, daily production (milk volume, fat and protein) and the nutritional value of forages to calculate feedstuffs to meet a cow’s needs. Students then made up a calf grain ration of canola, lupins, pellets and wheat with follow up activities to include a financial analysis of various feed types and diets. To introduce our TAP into Natural Disasters – Bushfire unit for 2023 we invited Marg Draffen, Marg Moloney, Rosalie Meadows, Elaine Lock and Monique Hustler from the Australian Red Cross to lead our Year 5/6 students into the Pillowcase Project. In light of the 2018 St Patrick’s Day fires in our region, we introduced the Project to help our students be even more fire ready and resilient when facing adversary. Marg and her team explained how the first Pillowcase Project was introduced into schools and communities by the American Red Cross after Cyclone Katrina to help students prepare for an emergency and build resilience when facing adversity. The volunteers discussed with students the importance of being prepared for any activity or event and they participated in a mindfulness session to prepare their minds for the thoughts and feelings that may arise before, during and after an emergency. Cards were distributed to challenge students to help them decide on the difference between a ‘need’ and a ‘want’ with groups of students deciding what they would need in an emergency. The students were given pillowcases to illustrate with things they would want to pack in an emergency with words used to record other things they may need in those circumstances. Situations where Red Cross volunteers were needed were considered and Monique desribed her role during deployments when communities faced floods, storms and bushfires. Following a recap of prepardness and mindfulness, three handcrafted Red Cross trauma bears were donated to the classes. Thanks ladies, it was a brilliant lesson! Do you remember what the Curdies was like in the old days? Year 9 students from Timboon P1-2 are planning to record and publish the stories of people about the Curdies River. If you can help the next generation with a story or memories of the Curdies River and can attend the school to share those memories, here is the plan. The interviews will be based at the school library on the Wednesday mornings, of 17th, 24th and 31st May. It would be good, but not essential if you could attend all sessions. To register an interest, please fill out this Google Forms link or call Kate at 5598 3755 on Monday, Tuesday or Thursday or email [email protected]. Background- The Timboon Agriculture Project (TAP) gets Timboon P-12 students out and engaged with the local community. For example, last year Year 7/8s designed and upgraded the landscaping for the Power Creek Management Committee and published life stories of community members (http://timboonagproject.weebly.com/tap-blog/archives/11-2022). The Curdies River Catchment Alliance (CRCA) was formed after the Curdies Fish Kills of 2022 when the blue green algae outbreak was particularly bad and got extra media attention when fish and dead cows were found in the River. Heytesbury District Landcare Network on behalf of CRCA asked whether students would be interested to record the stories and memories of people about the Curdies River with a view to possibly publishing the stories. Fortunately, TOPs has agreed to contribute to funding the publication. TAP responded enthusiastically offering the opportunity to the Year 9 Humanities classes, who will include
“I remember when…” If you have any answer relating to the Curdies then we would like to hear from you. We are looking for lots of people who the students can interview with any sort of connection to the Curdies River. Perhaps you grew up along the River, caught fish, kayaked or undertook other recreational activities, have family or other records, remember sightings of special animals or plants… Perhaps we’ll even be able to match your area of interest with the students’. The interviews will be based at the school library on Wednesday mornings. Ideally you would come to the school up to three times on each of May 17th, 24th and 31st, but if you are only available once or twice that will be ok too. Please click https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfRvzsfFMJbCgJEObKg5HRp4Gmb7KfM7ylIYxaCrEp2SvSE8Q/viewform to take you to a Google Form to leave your contact details, availability and any particular areas of interest. Or get in contact with - Kate at HDLN, 5598 3755 (Mon, Tues or Thurs), [email protected] Andrea at TAP - [email protected] Dean Drayton CRCA, [email protected], 0407 052 936 Please forward this email to someone who has jumped into your mind! Proudly we accepted the Primary Industries Education Foundation of Australia’s (PIEFA) invitation to showcase the TAP for the third time in ten years at their “Growing the Nextgen of Food and Fibre Education” national conference in Canberra. Pennie, Andrea and Nigel introduced the TAP model, “TAPbuilt:A community of educators” to educators, industry and government representatives during a hands on workshop as an example of “Successes and Innovation in Education”. After 2.5 big days of speakers, PD and workshops, and inspired and energised for even more TAP activities and community engagement across our P-12 campus, we will be focusing on new pathways, ideas and possibilities of further investigations potentially into agribusinesses, agritech, careers, beef, robotics, precision agriculture, livestock monitoring, poultry, SMART farms, viticulture, eggs and greenhouse monitoring, to enrich our curriculum offerings. |
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