We are grateful to Sharna Whitehand who, in her role as the Corangamite Shire Fire Recovery Coordinator, provided Timboon P-12 School with a class set of ‘The Fire Game’. The Fire Game was developed by the Surf Coast Shire and the Corangamite Shire to help communities be informed and prepared for the risk of fire with the tag- BE AWARE. BE PREPARED. GET CONNECTED. Reinforcing the safety messages from our local CFA volunteers, this was a great prompt for even more discussions with students about preparing for fires and household fire plans.
The Year 5/6 students have been studying bushfires as part of their TAP Natural Disasters Unit and reviewing newspaper articles from the Ash Wednesday and St Patrick's Day fires. In their writing students have been looking at word choice and how our word choice helps to engage our audience. Here is an example of considered word choice in a descriptive piece about the St Patricks Day bushfires written by one of our students. "A bike. Burnt past recognition. This is only one of the many charred things that have been lost. Fires tore through the land, bringing only devastation and horror. The power of this earth is unbearably strong and unexpected. Lives, held to custody, begging on their hands and knees for another chance at happiness. Absolute destruction." We are grateful to Sharna Whitehand who, in her role as the Corangamite Shire Fire Recovery Coordinator, provided Timboon P-12 School with a class set of ‘The Fire Game’. The Fire Game was developed by the Surf Coast Shire and the Corangamite Shire to help communities be informed and prepared for the risk of fire with the tag- BE AWARE. BE PREPARED. GET CONNECTED. Reinforcing the safety messages from our local CFA volunteers, this was a great prompt for even more discussions with students about preparing for fires and household fire plans. As a pharmacist at South West Healthcare at the onset of COVID 19 in 2020, Peter Lee was acutely aware of the role that Timboon Railway Shed Distillery owner, Josh Walker, and other Australian distilleries played in quickly adapting their distillation production to produce sanitizer products. Now a graduate teacher teaching VCE Chemistry at Timboon, Peter relished the opportunity to introduce his students to Josh during a distillery tour where Josh described the chemistry behind his products. Josh described the whiskey distillation process and how the whiskey is then matured in oak barrels to aid maturation and provide flavour. As students are investigating families of organic compounds and the similarities in their physical and chemical properties, they could appreciate that the COVID induced shortage of hand sanitizer meant that distillers could pivot to provide ethanol as alcohol is the main component of both hand sanitizer and whiskey but hand sanitizer does not require aging or oak storage! What a great opportunity for students to learn about the distillation process, different types of alcohols and their uses and to be able to connect curriculum content to the real-world application of chemistry. Thank you Josh! As we are investigating animal production systems of varying sizes and species, the Year 9/10 AgHort students recently hosted Cath Jenkins, from Purrumbete Paddock Eggs. Cath grew up on her parent’s hobby farm on the Mornington Peninsula, then studied Ag Science at university before share farming a dairy at Purrumbete for 15 years. In 2020, seeking another opportunity in agriculture, and after much research, the Jenkins ventured into egg production looking to produce, low density, outdoor poultry, resulting in their free range, pasture raised chooks! They have two brands that their produce is sold under, Great Ocean Road Free Range Eggs and Purrumbete Paddock Eggs and Beef with 1000 Isa Brown chickens and a 50 head beef herd on the side. Mobile sheds provide the hens with a place to lay their eggs with perches and protection from the elements and these are moved regularly to ensure that the birds have access to fresh grass and insects. The main predators of the chickens are foxes and eagles so their Maremma guard dogs are important, as is ensuring the chickens are free of disease with the poultry’s health a priority. The business has introduced some modern technology to support efficient egg production and they are continually learning how to best manage their flocks, egg stocks, marketing and sales with social media and happy customers playing a large role. Cath then provided examples of their product and generously handed out free range eggs to the students to take home and try. Very egg-citing! |
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April 2024
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