To describe the lessons learnt from WorkSafe's Alison Dennis and reinforced during our Farm Safety excursion, the Year 5/6 students produced safety posters to demonstrate their learning and as props for their Farm Safety workshops at TAP's On! 2019. Safety messages included Alison's top three points, 'Work areas are for work and play areas are for play,' 'No seat, No ride' and 'Just Do It - properly' and tips for driving tractors and motorbikes safely. Ex Timboon P-12 student and local paramedic, Andrew Berry, was invited to talk to students in Years 9/10 to help them investigate potential pathways and careers under the TAP umbrella of connecting into our community. Andrew described himself as a disengaged student, the various jobs he undertook after school and the challenges of studying to work towards his chosen career as someone who ‘hated studying’. Andrew encouraged students to be involved in community activities such as footy clubs or volunteering with service organizations like Ambulance Victoria and being an ACO (Ambulance Community Officer) to gain part time employment and more importantly, experience. He suggested that these traits indicated a sense of team work, responsibility and initiative which made you stand out from other job applicants when employers were considering the resumes of potential employees. Andrew then challenged students to take advantage of the skills to be learnt at school over the next few years, to choose a career or pathway that really excited or interested them and the importance of continuing to learn and educate yourself. Great career advice for any pathway. After the ‘Our Farming Community, Enviro Stories’ investigation and inspired by an interview session with local journalist, author and duck farmer, Greg Clarke, our Year 3/4 students crafted their own duck based stories as either a pop up book, a spiral bound book or through book creator on an ipad. Greg very generously offered to come back into the classroom to review the stories and critique the books at the end of term. He was very impressed with the standard of writing and told the students they did a great job. He really liked the use of synonyms, for example, when describing the initial smelly car trip home with ducklings, one student wrote that “The car stank like 1 million garbage trucks!” Greg commended students on their originality, factual recall, the use of words effectively, and writing from a different perspective. Once again Greg stressed the importance of editing, sometimes rewriting 8-10 times if necessary and to read the story out loud to help you edit the work. Esha Crole was our award winning author who was presented with Greg and Jodi’s “Just Duck” cookbook. Our Year 3/4 students are very fortunate to have someone with Greg’s expertise help them become more authentic storytellers and authors. As part of her ‘Women in Agritech’ Weather Learning Module for Year 7 Science students, Anne Frazer is hosting a variety of agricultural industry representatives to outline to students how they use weather data. Bruce Vallance, from Ocean Road Pastoral, demonstrated the technology he uses to access weather information, the decisions the data helps him make and how using technology to implement this weather data has changed their dairy operation. Bruce outlined his use of the BOM, Yr.no, Elders, and AV Weather websites and apps, and explained that this historical and predictor data helps inform big picture decisions like calving start date, grass growth curve, irrigation start up date, when to take holidays and small levers such as when to spread fertilizer and when to graze certain paddocks. Students learnt about the importance of matching predicted pasture growth rates to anticipated milk production and how technology is used to monitor the irrigation system to avoid late start ups or pugging to maximize pasture growth. Inspired by the visit by local chef, Kylie Treble, from The Place of Wonder, and their Week of Tastes experiences, our Year 3/4 students wrote a report or acrostic poem about their cabbage tasting. Students described the various tastes, flavor combinations, pairing and mixing food to hide or embellish the taste of the food. Once again...cabbage, who knew! Seven A have been keeping a secret! In semester one, they entered the 2019 DAF Hermitage Research Facility Schools Science Plant Competition. Students conducted an investigation into the effect of the disease, Net Bloch, on different types of barley and completed 2 research projects into Invasive Pests and their effects on Agriculture and Global Food Supply. Early in Term 3 we found out that students were awarded first prize in the class section, Years 7-9. Thank you to Danielle O'Keefe and Tess Blake (Grass Growers) for demonstrating how to design a scientific poster and for teaching us about some invasive pests. We are very proud of our science skills and thank Poppy, Ruby, Charlotte, Olivia and Robbie for submitting their work as our class entry. We had to wait until this week for the trophy to arrive - now the secret is out! WorkSafe Victoria have noted that farms are the most dangerous workplaces in Victoria and this is further compounded as farms are often workplaces and residences. The Year 5/6 TAP into Farm Safety excursion gave students the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and reinforced their learning about farm safety previously introduced by WorkSafe Officer, Alison Dennis. During their excursion to Ocean Road Pastoral, students rotated through 5 workstations, learning about safety in the dairy with Bruce Vallance and Issac Fynn and safe animal handling practices with Tessa Poot (The Vet Group) supported by Jess Harmsworth and Meaghan Johnston (Bega). Alison Dennis outlined the correct storage and handling of chemicals, Trevor Croft (Greg Allan Farm Machinery) explained the risks associated with farm machinery while Andrew Berry (Ambulance Victoria) and John Andreoli (Community Emergency Response Team - CERT) taught DRSABC. Timboon P-12 School Principal, Mr Reid, and Lauren Day, the Acting Practice Manager - Agriculture WorkSafe Victoria joined students as they rotated around the 5 workstations learning how they could keep themselves and their families safe on farm. After demonstrating their knowledge with a quick quiz, students enjoyed the Stringers supplied by Jess from Bega. Thank you to our presenters for helping to keep our kids safe! As a practical means to investigate the inputs, processes and outputs in a business analysis case, our VCAL students were introduced to Bilyana Grazing earlier this term by owner, Simon Gleeson. Simon described the of the weight gain enterprise and students later worked on individual projects investigating number, measurement, financial numeracy and probability/statistics. Students examined the health and feed costs, weight gain comparisons of dairy heifers vs Wagyus, the amount of feed consumed, and the time allocated to various parts of the business. This was a great, applied opportunity for our students to learn how the costs of these inputs affect the bottom line of a business. |
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February 2024
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