Chefs, nutritionists, graphic designers, delicatessen owners, transport operators, butchers, tourism operators, industrial chemists, veterinarians, fertilizer spreader drivers, merchandise salesmen, agronomists, real estate agents, engineers, fitter and turners, dairy technicians, account officers and OHS specialists were amongst the various careers discovered during our CCC walking town tour of Timboon. Our survey included Shirley Walker at Total Dairy Service, James O’Brien and Ben Green from Landmark Timboon and Emma and David Pope at The Corner Store Timboon. Our hosts outlined their career paths, the types of businesses they operated, the number of people employed in their business, and as students discovered, even though we only visited three local businesses, the flow on careers related to dairy and agriculture were extensive. Thank you to our hosts for making our students aware of the many career opportunities available to them in the future. Our Year 7 science students have submitted their entries for the Hermitage Schools Plant Science Competition, ‘Game of Drones’. Students grew a small crop of oats and photographed the developing plants to analyze and record plant growth. Other tasks included researching the way drones and robotics are currently used in Australian farming practices and how advances in technology can improve the livelihood of farmers and communities. Some of the topics researched included driverless tractors, drones, Swagbots, robotic weeders, digital farm hands, robotic dairies and farm mapping. Best of luck Year 7s! As well as learning about incubating eggs and rearing chicks our Year 5/6 students have investigated the design and technology involved in planning chook sheds. Students discussed design constraints such as keeping the chickens fed, watered, sheltered from the weather, having accessible egg boxes, keeping the chickens safe from predators and stimulated. Following a discussion about scale drawing, students then labeled and annotated their 3D drawings and bought supplies such as cardboard boxes and other accessories to school to build scale models of their chook sheds. This learning was extended into their literacy studies as students were then challenged to use persuasive writing to create an advertisement to sell their chook emporiums! Raspberry, avocado, beetroot, tea, spinach, silverbeet, carrot and turmeric… who knew these natural vegetables, fruits, spices and other sources of dye would be used by the Year 7/8 Funky Fabrics Textile elective students as part of their fabric dying experiments? Students learnt that not everything as it seems when you use natural dyes as red cabbage dyes fabric blue, while lilacs colours fabric green...who knew! Once again our careers session was a highlight of the Year 7/8 CCC science elective featuring panelists David Sheedy, a vet from The Vet Group, Brett Hunger, an agribusiness banker from CBA, Danielle O’Keefe, an agronomist with Grass Growers, Rachel Alexander, a farm services advisor from WCB and Andy Powell, a young farmer. Each panelist described their career path including subjects they took at school, study or education required for their current careers, features of their jobs that appealed to them, any quirks or benefits of their jobs and any pieces of advice for our students. Some panelists bought tools of their trade and interesting components of their job including cockchafers, a steer’s brain and Herd Manager ear tags. All stressed that that it was ok to be uncertain of what you wanted to do as a career but to take on any opportunities offered to you to do what you enjoy doing. Our Year 7/8 Cows Create Career elective students once again participated in the SW regional CCC competition with over 20 local teams competing in a dairy celebration day. “Mooshmellows” were the winning team and received equal highest points as a team from Kings College for their project about dairy, a science report on their calves and a fun photo. Thanks to Simone Renyard and Peter Fulton as our industry advocates and for loaning the calves, Bambi and Maggie, for the students to interact with and learn from. Fortunately the students were able to visit ‘their girls’ on the way to the competition and they are looking very healthy after their stint at school. Thank you to everyone concerned. Click on the article "Schoolyards calve out a career in the dairy industry" for more details https://www.standard.net.au/story/5482729/schoolyards-turn-into-dairy-farms-for-three-week-program/ As part of their studies of biochemistry and oil refining this term the Year 11 Chemistry students visited the Beach Energy Otway gas plant. Sue Dwyer conducted an induction session on site stressing that safety was everyone’s duty and then students donned safety vests, glasses and gloves before joining Trevor Van Andel on a tour of the plant. Students learnt that the gas plant is mainly producing methane, ethane, propane and butane and the liquids (condensate) are then sent off for further refining into petrol. This was a wonderful opportunity for the class to reinforce their understanding of hydrocarbons and fractional distillation evidenced in the oil extraction process at this plant. What a interesting community we live in! Donna Ellis spoke to the Year 7/8 “Have your say” politics / commerce class about the importance of being involved in the community. She was able to link all our previous guest speakers back to community connection and what happens if nobody is willing to get involved. Donna spoke about the importance of volunteering in the community and how bigger things can grow from this involvement. There was also some discussion about what a community would look like of nobody took on volunteering roles….a very boring place indeed. Students were able to share their areas of community involvement and it was amazing to see the range of activities that students volunteer and are involved in at such a young age. Donna spoke specifically about some of her key interests including parkrun, Timboon girls' football and her role as chair of the Community Advisory Committee for TDHC. Thanks very much Donna for your time and wealth of information. Once again Year 10 students from Timboon P-12 School have demonstrated their proficiency in STEM disciplines! Students competed in the regional section of the South Coast Science and Engineering Challenge at Deakin University against eight other regional schools competing in a range of science / engineering based problem solving activities. Our students not only applied their knowledge and skills but it was their team work and perseverance that really shone through on the day completing tasks like bridge building, developing a robotic arm and launching a sling shot This makes it two wins in a row for Timboon P-12 School in this event. By winning at this level, the class are eligible for the state final later in the year and the School was awarded three Samsung Galaxy Tab S2’s as part of their prize. Thank you to Telstra, The University of Newcastle, Deakin University and Rotary Clubs for your support of the Engineering Challenge. Please refer to the online article in the Warrnambool Standard for a full report and interviews with students. Congratulations to everyone concerned! https://www.standard.net.au/story/5462331/south-west-students-sample-jobs-in-science/?cs=72 Our Year 5/6 Maths class have sent out a request to school families for more pumpkin data for their maths survey to enable them to compare results about the most recent pumpkin growing experience. It does not matter if the vine didn’t grow as true data includes good and bad results. This is an anonymous survey with either 3 or 10 questions, depending on your pumpkin’s survivability and growth! Students and their families are asked to respond to the survey by clicking on the link on either the Timboon P12 School website, Compass or the Timboon P12 Facebook site. |
Archives
February 2024
|