Our Year 7/8 Community Project students were hard at it planting out native species as part of their revegetation and refurbishment of a section of Power Creek in Timboon. Aiding by Geoff Rollinson and Lyndell Driscoe from HDLN, the students planted three varieties of grasses, Lomandra, Knobby Club Rush and Silver Tussock or Poa lab and pulled ivy tendrils from existing trees along the creek bank. Working with Peter Pope the students planned and marked out footpaths and the location of seats along the pathway with the intent to plant more species before the term ends. As we head towards the school holidays and, hopefully, some beach weather, we once again approached Scott McKenzie from the Port Campbell Surf Life Saving Club (PCSLSC) to help raise awareness of surf and water conditions and to provide key water safety messages for our junior students. Scott, Sean Lenehan, Guy Faber, Alysa Hibburt and Delys Jones from PCSLSC generously gave their time to provide targeted, age appropriate safety messages to our junior students. Our guests described their roles at PCSLSC and the opportunities to train and compete in Club events across Australia with their surf boat teams. Scott outlined basic water / beach safety, swimming between the flags, identifying rips and the Life Saving Victoria Nipper Program. Sean introduced modern life saving procedures using drones and students could see the flags, IRBs and surfboats that are used for training and competition exercises. The Club members demonstrated how to perform CPR and students were given the opportunity to practice CPR on the Club’s mannikins. Our guests encouraged students and their families to enjoy our waterways but to be safe over summer with the main messages from today's sessions being- Don't underestimate the water, Swim between the flags, Don't swim alone, and Call for help if necessary! Hot off the press our Year 7/8 Community Connections group were excited and proud to present their interviewees with copies of the books that were drafted and published based on conversations conducted in August this year. Over a shared morning tea, the students presented copies of the published texts to Brenda Mathieson, Timboon Mens Shed participants; John Wigley, Terry O’Connor, Doug Trigg, Albert Toal, and Tom Hose and to Cliff Pert from the TDHS Social Support Group. By exploring the experiences of other people, students have learnt more about themselves, discovered their creativity, developed their writing skills, learnt about the history of the local area, hopefully have felt more connected to the community, made new friends and left a legacy for both the participants and our society. After the presentation, students shared part of the Timboon P-12 School history display that had been curated by Mrs Mackenzie with research provided by Peter Younis from the the Heytesbury Historical Society, much to the delight of the Timboon residents. Congratulations to the students, teacher Sarah Whitworth and all the participants, including Lesley Togni, Ray McCraw and Gerry Kor for such a great experience and community legacy. Inspired by the challenge issued by members of the Power Creek Reserve Committee, our Year 7/8 Community Project students have been busy researching and planning options for ‘their’ section of the creek. This morning the students presented Committee members, Peter Pope, Ray Smith, Alan Kerr and Terry O'Connor and Geoff Rollinson from Heytesbury and District Landcare Network (HDLN), a copy of their draft power Creek Reserve ideas. The students have incorporated a path to the creek, seating, a bubble tap, information boards and plantings of natives to help protect and enhance the creek banks. In the next few weeks we hope to be able to work with HDLN to get the planting underway. What a great community project! Today is National Agriculture Day and we want to acknowledge our wonderful community of educators as celebrated at TAP's On! 2022, where we welcomed students, parents, industry and visiting teachers to explore the innovative TAP agriculture / community curriculum. Almost like speed dating on agriculture and community, students rotated through a series of peer lead STEAM workshops elaborating on their understanding of the abundant TAP curriculum outcomes. For more details check out the http://timboonagproject.weebly.com/tap-blog #AgDayAu The Year 9/10 ‘Issues in Law’ elective students have been investigating the law and legal processes and were keen to learn about what happens when you break the law so we invited Senior Constable, Tony McLachlan from the Port Campbell Police Station, into the classroom to answer their questions. Tony, originally a welder and dairy farmer, has been in the police force for 12 years, joining when he was 40 and described the broad range of duties and roles involved in policing. As a regional policeman he is often first on scene with incidents ranging from traffic accidents, missing persons, assaults, domestic violence, murders, suicide prevention, welfare checks, general emergency incidents or stolen goods. A primary role is to lock down scenes when necessary to preserve evidence or try to obtain or establish someone’s ID which can at times be obtained during an interview at a police station. Tony described prosecution scenarios in a range of offences ranging from a caution to summary, indictable or criminal offences. He explained that a caution can be issued if someone is under 18, has no priors and has committed a minor, non indictable offence, admitted their wrongdoing or sought to rectify it as 80% of people have some sort of police engagement but only 5% have ongoing police interaction. Students examined Tony’s bullet proof vest, handcuffs, baton, body cam and spray before he showed them how the police car was set up with radar, lights, beacons, rescue gear, breath testing apparatus and other police / emergency equipment. When asked for a final piece of advice for students when dealing with police, he advised them to be upfront and honest as everyone makes mistakes. Thanks for your time Tony, a great session. In the days following TAP’s On! students recounted their favourite part of the day with various literacy and recount activities. The students’ work described their rotation learning about alpacas, goats and sheep, growing sunflowers, the physics of push and pull with tractors, Bee Bots, the Picasso Cow and loud ducks! We were also fortunate enough to host Masterchef Tim Bone @ Timboon who discussed healthy food choices and making Toasties. What a great way to celebrate and showcase our extensive TAP curriculum, thanks everyone for your enthusiasm and support. TAP's On! was a wonderful celebration of the TAP curriculum and our very supportive community and industry partners who also posted about their involvement in our curriculum expo on social media. Thanks to Heytesbury and District Landcare Network, Food and Fibre Great South Coast, Nullawarre Primary School, Timboon Fire Brigade and Healthy Farming Systems...What brilliant partners we have, we love working with you too! It’s not often you see a Toastie Masterchef, opposite a parkrun, near one of Australia’s best cows with a tractor and an alpaca, miniature goats and sheep, or a hamburger challenge, in the proximity of a 3D FLAIM training model or a Tourism Maths encounter juxtaposed with a solar oven or a potential Foot and Mouth outbreak whilst looking for a Queen bee, before being told to “Shut the Duck Up!” That doesn’t even include the Picasso cow, small engines, Bee Botts, curds and whey, sunflower planting, Curdies catchment investigation, recycling challenge, farm puppets, Power Creek’s water bugs, or robotic dairies. After a two year absence the annual TAP’s On! curriculum expo had it all, and even more for students, teachers and visitors. Just under 500 students from Timboon P-12 School and Nullawarre Primary School participated in a series of peer lead workshops held at Timboon on Tuesday in a celebration of the exciting curriculum based around agriculture and community at Timboon P-12 School. Tim Bone was our feature guest @ Timboon and he recounted his Mastechef journey, discussed the importance of nutritious food including a healthy Two Minute Noodle dish and conducted a Masterclass on Tim’s Toasties introducing his Big Mac Toastie. Children from the Timboon Kindergarten and the Kardinia Learning Centre explored our curriculum workstations taking home sunflowers to plant. Students also enjoyed FM Milk from Saputo, Stringers courtesy of Bega and Mainland Cheese portions from Fonterra. The TAP in 2021-2022 was supported by the Gall, Uebergang and Lane Foundations with TAP’s On! sponsored by Westpac Bank. Thank you to our wonderful student presenters, teachers, mentors, parents, visiting educators, industry and community guests for helping us celebrate TAP's On! 2022 Our Year 7/8 Collaborative Coding science elective class were fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to visit Phil and Symone Vine’s robotic dairy to see world class robotic technology operating in a regional dairy business. Phil and Symone explained that the 250 cows on this 250ac farm were milked by 4 robots and that the cows effectively wore ’Fitbits’ that relayed information about their activity including rumination, whether on they were on heat or health indicators such as a decline in activity. The Vines have four calvings a year with cows, who produced 692kg milk solids (MS) last year, voluntarily walking to the dairy 2.3 times a day. The free range cows are directed into different grazing blocks, A,B,C with the option to send them to the large shed, D, during hot or inclement weather. Students learnt that production had increased by 25% and vet bills had declined as the information gained from the cow collars and robots alerted the Vines to early potential problems such as mastitis, lameness, illness or inactivity as well as drafting cows for mating or preventing health issues. Labour was a big saving with 8.30am starts, 5.30pm finishes and lots of flexibility but Phil could be alerted by a phone call for an emergency or alert 24/7. A robot costs roughly correlate to a labour unit a year and the Vines’ cows are definitely pretty cruisey about their robotic milkers. Any takers for a STEM career in this innovative new field? |
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March 2024
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