As part of the TAP and the Science Coding elective, Year 7/8 students hosted Timboon P12 student, Sean Lenehan, and Dr Blake Allan, the Chief Remote Pilot for Deakin University who discussed their respective uses for drones and technology. Sean outlined the requirements and restrictions involved in flying drones in our region and discussed how they can be used in agriculture to check stock, irrigation, troughs etc and for photography or videos including landscapes as evidenced in his Sean Lenehan Photography business. Blake described his career path and interest in environmental science and how he was able to partner this with drone technology. He described the role of drones in 3D volumetrics, time-series analysis based on high-accuracy UAV data, and multispec and thermal imaging in vegetation analysis, agriculture and wildlife monitoring. Blake then allowed students to pilot mini indoor Tello drones which proved to be very popular. As part of the Year 8 Science 'Camembert in the Classroom' unit, Julian Benson from Apostle Whey Cheese described his career path and the creation of his niche cheesemaking business that combined his interest in dairying and tourism. Julian explained how the various cheeses were developed and the rationale behind the introduction of Apostle Way Full Cream Milk and Italian Style Gelato to their product range. He stressed the importance of pride of place in his dairy products and mentioned that the Apostle Whey Cheese logo was designed by an ex Timboon P-12 student emphasising that the business was located on the 'way/whey' to the 12 Apostles - clever marketing! Students then sampled 'Loch Ard Gorgeous' Camembert and Julian challenged students to find what loved and to take advantage of opportunities when they presented themselves. Our Year 5/6 students hosted Mark Cuthell from Port Campbell Tourist Information Centre and Donna Ellis from parkrun who introduced the new Year 5/6 unit, Tourism Maths. Mark described how tourism and agribusiness in our region involves big numbers but that we were going to start our TAP maths investigation looking at smaller numbers based on Timboon parkrun and the impact that it has on our local economy. Donna explained that parkrun is a free 5km walk, run or jog event and updated students with the following stats from Timboon parkrun- Number of events:76 Number of runners: 639 Number of runs: 3,509 Average number of runners per week:46.2 Biggest attendance:151 Total hours run: 0Years 100Days 15Hrs 34Min 52Secs An interesting fact: To date we have had 437 registered participants and have 144 individual volunteers! Donna challenged students to be involved in Timboon parkrun’s Junior Day on 17th November from 7.50am where participants needing to register on the Timboon parkrun sitehttps://www.parkrun.com.au/timboon/ Let’s set a world record for the biggest number of juniors registered for a local event and watch this space to see how our Tourism maths unit evolves! Under the TAP banner, and as part of the Year 9/10 Commerce elective, students visited Andy Martyn from Triple A Cycles to learn about a very different sort of agribusiness. Andy outlined his career path which stemmed from his Year 10 work experience placement on small engines to work on Harley Davidsons and 4 wheel motorbikes in Timboon. As well as describing the path to setting up his own business in Timboon, Andy advised students to offer to watch and help others engage in things they were interested in, to ask for advice, pay attention to detail and to work in a field that they loved. Inspired after their Skype session with author Simone Kain, the Year 1/2 students investigated the bee and honey facts they discovered in George the Farmer’s book, ‘Beehive Breakout’. After this fact finding mission the students were challenged to collate the facts and then write their own narrative based on a detail that interested them. As well as writing narratives, our clever 1/2 teachers devised maths exercises based on honeycombs.... What a buzz! Fingers crossed for our Year 3/4 students whose designs been entered in the Coles Schools Bag Design competition which encourages students to create a design for the new range of Coles reusable shopping bags. The students designed original, creative bags with the theme, ‘delicious fresh food’ with thanks to Timboon Hardware for donating paint sample cards for us to mosaic. Students focused primarily on using a monochromatic colour scheme and worked hard to provide contrast between the main object and background. One very proud teacher, students have done such a wonderful job. We are very excited to invite you to join us in welcoming George the Farmer and his mates, Simone Kain and Ben Hood, to TAP's On! on Thursday, 22nd November at Timboon P12 School. See the invitation to George's performance at TAP's On and background resources you may like for your visit. See you there Mate! As part of their Science investigation into genetics and genomics Year 10 students were once again fortunate enough to visit Garry and Lee Hibberd’s Cooriemungle Holsteins dairy farm. Garry and Lee outlined the importance of world class genetics to their business and explained how their enterprise uses embryo flushing to maximize genetic gain in their herd. Peter Younis and Marilyn Gristedes from The Vet Group explained the procedure and students were able to see how an ultrasound is used to guide the placement of the catheter to flush and retrieve the embryos from donor cows. Evie, a vet student from CSU in Wagga, was originally from a sheep and cropping farm in WA and she was also to help outline steps in the ET process. We are very fortunate to have access to see world class genomic technology introduced to our class by such passionate advocates in regional Victoria. Thank you Garry, Lee, Pete, Marilyn and Evie. As a way of reinforcing their learning about body systems and digestion, our Year 8 Science students were challenged to produce a children’s book which would explain to students in Years 3/4 how a cow’s digestive system works. This peer lead learning is to then be as the focus of a workshop at TAP’s On! called ‘Ruminate on that!’ What a wonderful way to learn as is evidenced by the variety of texts and stories produced, moooving stories indeed. |
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March 2024
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