THE average person would not consider the resources that are required to keep a city well fed, let alone the world.
With this is mind ‘The Archibull Prize’ has been developed to tell this story and celebrate the role that Australian farmers play in feeding Australian families and many other families around the world.
The Archibull Prize is an innovative and fun program which provides student participants with opportunities to meet young farmers and engage in genuine farm experiences, gain knowledge and skills about the production of the food they eat, fibres they use and the environment they live in.
This year, the Malanda State High School is one of over 40 schools, located on the eastern seaboard of Australia, which is competing in this year’s Archibull Prize. The participating schools range in location from the Atherton Tablelands in Queensland, right down to Melbourne in Victoria.
The requirements of the programMalanda include a visual arts component which involves painting a life size fiberglass cow, the completion of a multi-media video and a blog which documents the journey of the cow’s art work and students’ learnings.
Each year selected Archibull cows are given the opportunity to be showcased at the Royal Queensland Show (Ekka) or at the Sydney Royal Easter Show.
At the Malanda State High School, students from various grades have had the opportunity to become involved with this year’s 2014 Archibull Prize.
“The Archibull Prize is a great opportunity to get students and the community involved in learning about sustainability in various farming industries,” participating student Georgina Humphries said.
The school’s life-sized fibreglass Archibull Prize cow entry was a highlight of the recent Beef Producer’s field day which was held at the High School and attracted a large number of beef producers.
At the field day, beef producers and community members were invited to share their thoughts on ‘Sustainability in the Beef industry’ which is the topic that Malanda High School was allocated.
Their allocated food industry of ‘Sustainability in Beef’ has been depicted onto the cow by incorporating the producers’ ideas. Vibrant colours and elaborate painting designs have been used in the process.
Before designing their cow, students did in depth research on sustainability on their topic.
Their cow portrays various elements about farming in the beef industry which range from environmental management to the genetics and breeding of the stock.
Students have gained valuable knowledge about farming while at the same time having fun.
Young Farming Champion, Jasmine Nixon from Merryvale Angus, "Merryvale", Roslyn via Taralga, NSW was flown to meet with Malanda High School students. She spoke to a full school parade and spent a full day with Malanda’s agriculture students during their classes where they had the opportunity to speak with her personally to find out more about her farming experiences.
“The invitation to participate in the Archibull has come across my desk for the last few years, but this year with the help of Cindy Perry who is the Far North coordinator for the Gateway schools to Agribusiness, the 4 Gateway schools in the Far North all decided to become involved in this project,” Ms Nixon said.
Malanda High School Agriculture teacher Dave Kilpatrick said the aim of becoming involved was to obviously use a different focus to research a topical subject in Agriculture but also to get some interdepartmental collaboration in the project and thereby involving kids (and staff) who haven’t really been exposed to the agricultural streams to gather some Ag knowledge and understanding.
“The project also dovetailed neatly into some of the curricular and extracurricular projects and events held at Malanda State High such as the regional interschool sports, the Malanda Beef Plan Group field day and even the visit from a group of students from our sister school in Japan,” Mr Kilpatrick said.
“The Archibull banner was flown at full mast with the message of sustainability in agricultural being delivered loud and strong,” he said.
The Malanda High students are doing a tremendous job with their Archibull Prize project, especially in the light of being one of the schools which received its Archibull cow later than some of the other participating schools who were closer to major centres.
“With the assistance and understanding of the ICT, Art and Manual Arts departments, we have a dedicated group of kids from all year levels across the school led by the driving force that is Georgina Humphries, really take ownership of this project,” Mr Kilpatrick said.
“These students have given up their lunchtimes to come up for brainstorming sessions, design meetings, and are now working incredibly hard to a tight schedule to transfer the many ideas and designs from whiteboards and sheets of paper onto a 3D fibreglass cow that is not only visually beautiful but is also tactile and alive, to illustrate the story of how Sustainability in Agriculture is important to every single one of us,” he said.
