After their visits to a processor and supermarket, the Year 4 TAP into Farm Science students travelled to see where their Paddock to Plate journey could begin. Students visited the beef and prime lamb property of Richard and Marilyn Gristede where they learnt about farm maps (Marilyn Gristede), healthy pastures (Jo Groves - Whitehouse Fertilizers), beef farming (Nick Maddison - Landmark and Richard Gristede) and sheep and wool (Steve McKenzie). At Ash and Michelle Gristede's dairy farm students investigated animal health (Tom Walsh - The Vet Group), water recycling (Ash Gristede), the dairy plant (David Case - DeLaval) and Effluent recycling (Michelle Gristede and Andrea Vallance). Students were challenged with questions posed by the guest presenters at the conclusion of their workshop sessions and enjoyed a FM Milk courtesy of Sungold. Thank you to everyone involved, what a wonderful hands-on way to learn about the science around us!. Building a Prosthetic Leg from common household materials may not be an immediately recognisable component of Timboon P-12 School’s innovative educational program, the TAP (Timboon Agriculture Project). But STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) is acknowledged as an integral part of regional industry and the Origin Foundation and Engineers without Borders partnered with the TAP to host “Regioneering” workshops for students to build greater awareness of, and appreciation for technologies and careers available in regional communities and industries in the future. The three Year 5/6 classes were challenged by the 'prosthetic limb' workshop which required students to work in groups to create a working product. Watching the 5/6 students walk a measured line - with their prosthetic leg made from pipe, elastic and a drain plunger - showed just how inventive our students can be. All workshops were inspirational and hopefully we have some budding engineers (or diplomats) after the day. We are thankful to Origin and Engineers without Borders for providing this great learning experience. Applied learning opportunities are a feature of the TAP and during the Origin Foundation and Engineers Without Borders Regioneering workshops engineers and scientists challenged Timboon students in Years 5/6 with an opportunity to investigate a range of skills, experiences and opportunities beyond the boundaries of normal curriculum. The two year 7 classes experienced the ‘Water for Life’ workshop where the concepts of engineering (to design a useable product) combined with the elements of humanitarian aid. Each group of students were given a country to build the water filter for. The amount of money (to buy materials) and the instructions they were given, reflected the different resources of each country. Their aim: to turn VERY muddy water into clean water. The twist was that each group was a different country with different resources to reflect challenges faced by different countries. Students soon began ‘diplomatic talks’ to request loans or foreign aid to support their ability to build the filter. Students were fully engaged in the process and the final test of the filters was nerve wracking for some! Here are some of our reflections. In the real world each country has a different way to get clean water. – Thomas Dai I now have a better understanding of other countries and how hard it is to get clean water. – Sophie Gleeson Now I’ve seen this activity I might kind of want to be an engineer. – Poppy Haugh Today some people from Monash University and the Origin Gas Plant came to talk to us about Engineering. The different types of engineering were just some of the things we covered. We used cheese cloth, charcoal, fine sand, coarse sand and fine gravel to make our filter. – Lucy Jones I learnt how to filter water with rocks and sand. There are different types of water you get from filtering. The water in Australia has to have a turbidity under 5 to be able to drink. - Tom Archibald Having Engineers without Borders come really opened my eyes to the more unfortunate countries like Ethiopia and Vietnam. They have unclean water and a lot less materials to filter water with than we do. They have to filter water by hand. I also realised that the countries that are sympathetic to others will give what they can to help. – Mali Glendinning |
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March 2024
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