During first semester the Year 9/10 Digital Technologies students explored the various types of technologies that have evolved and, as part of the TAP, we invited Dr Nikki Kelly from CQUniversity to help our students better understand Agri-tech. Students were introduced to the collaborative GPS Cows program that allows participants to develop skills and an understanding of GPS and its application in the collection of data and involves researchers, industry professionals and educators across Australia and USA. Nikki joined our students via Video link for three one hour sessions to introduce the GPS Cows program and our students learnt how to generate, clean and analyse GPS tracking data to make decisions that improve production efficiencies, sustainability and animal welfare. The aim of GPS Cows is to increase the knowledge and skills of secondary students in emerging Agri-tech options, specifically tools and systems which provide animal location and behaviour data, to encourage them to consider tertiary study and careers in the agricultural sector as highly skilled STEM-qualified agricultural workforce participants. Our student feedback about the pilot program was very positive and several students expressed interest in this as a potential career path that they hadn’t previously considered. We were fortunate to be able to introduce this component to our students this year as part of our Victorian Association of Agricultural and Horticulture Educators (VAAHE) membership, and look forward to furthering these skills next year when students will analyse, both their own data, and existing datasets to help understand and improve agricultural production locally and across the world. Comments are closed.
|
Archives
April 2024
|