​Our Year 8 Science students have extended the activities outlined in the Dairy Australia “Camembert in the Classroom” unit of work by inviting Cheese maker, David Mellor, to describe how cheese is produced at Warrnambool Cheese & Butter Factory. David described the process from collection, pasteurization, adding cultures, cutting, heating, draining, milling, salting, pressing, maturing, QA, markets, marketing, and concluded with cheese identification and cheese tasting which the students thoroughly enjoyed. 

The Discover Dairy Student Pen Pal Program, is the latest initiative from Discover Dairy aimed at connecting classrooms from different parts of the country, encouraging students to think beyond their learnings, and talk about them with others. Timboon P-12’s Year 4/5C has been paired with Lysterfield Primary School.  The students have introduced themselves and are beginning to share their knowledge about their 2015 ‘Farm to Plate’ unit and their award winning Picasso Cow. The program is about building stronger relationships between urban and regional classrooms so that students can learn first-hand how life can differ between regions, suburbs and states, while developing their writing skills, reflecting on school life and sharing what they’ve learnt from the Discover Dairy program and the TAP.

​The Discover Dairy program offers three units of work, 10 sequences of inquiry and a series of interactive whiteboard resources, learning about Australia’s dairy industry which has never been easier or more fun. Using the resources, the Student Pen Pal program propels the program even further, encouraging students to go on a dairy discovery beyond the traditional classroom walls. This week, students from Year 4/5C received their BIC Prize Pack of goodies and look forward to using them.  BIC proudly sponsors the Discover Dairy Student Pen Pal Program, supplying all students with pens for their letter writing.

​To celebrate Science Week approximately 90 people attended our ‘Drones, Droids and Robots’ primary school Family Science night. Guest speaker, Adam Howell, from DeLaval outlined the way robots are progressively being used in the dairy industry to milk cows while Wendy Couch, a local dairyfarmer and drone enthusiast, showcased her drones that are used to capture images of her farm and the south west coastline.
A 45 minute challenge was issued to families to build a robot ‘to make life easier’ with materials supplied by Mr Mottram. Robots were created that could cook, clean, hang out washing, clean up dog poop etc before the Johnson family were announced as winners as judged by Adam and Wendy. Families partook in a robot quiz to identify robots from popular culture while they enjoyed robot cakes produced by Tamara Haugh and Judy Devlin. Participants also appreciated the robot prints lining the walls of the 5/8 building created by Sarah Mackieson and the Year 4/5 and 6 students. Thank you to our Science teachers, the student helpers, Ahliya Harris and Jordan Rundle, and everyone who the participated or contributed to a great Science Week TAP event.

As part of their investigation into diseases in animals and plants, our Year 9 Science students hosted Zoe Vogels, from The Vet Group, to outline the characteristics of diseases. Zoe explained what is a disease, it’s causes, effects, the body’s response and treatment. We are very fortunate to have someone of Zoe’s caliber and enthusiasm working with our students, thanks Zoe!