Students TAP into agriculture

AGRICULTURE industry specialists came together last week at Timboon P-12 School as part of a day led by Timboon Agriculture Project (TAP) to promote pathways for students.

Learning: Students rotated through various workshops at Timboon P-12 School last week as a part of TAPs! On 2025.

TAP’s On! 2025, held on Thursday, November 13, brought the agricultural community together and created a collaborative learning environment for students as industry experts from across the region joined the school to share their knowledge.

Some of the companies represented included South West Tafe, Southern Land Bovine Services, Dairy Australia, WestVic Dairy, Velisha Farms, Parks Victoria and the Corangamite Catchment Management Authority.

The event extended beyond agriculture, with other attendees including Corangamite Shire, Timboon District Healthcare Service, Country Fire Authority, Victoria State Emergency Service and the Victoria Police.

The main event of the day was hosted by Catherine Velisha from Velisha Farms, who demonstrated a masterclass on cooking vegetables and how to increase vegetable intake.

“We do a farmgate program out of Velisha Farms, so what we’ve brought is a condensed version of that and I guess to really encourage people to think about vegetables differently and how they can eat some more vegetables,” she said.

“Also, to think about careers and the opportunities in horticulture.

“People usually come to us in-house so this is our first roadshow, but it’s been really good.

“We’re doing some cooking as well so what we’re doing is showing easy ways to get vegetables into your diet and encourage young people to eat vegetables.”

The day was spread into multiple workshops hosted by the different representatives, with classes rotating between them from 10am-1pm.

Pennie Maxwell was running a class on bees and their impact on the ecosystem.

“We are looking at ecosystems but looking at the importance of bees to an ecosystem,” she said.

“We’re looking at various different aspects from pollination all the way through to tasting the honey.

“We’re looking at bee anatomy and those sorts of things.

“The curriculum says we need to learn about ecosystems, which can be a little bit abstract, so if we make it something a little bit more relevant and important to the students and looking at why bees are important and how that relates to food security.”

In another room, Dairy Australia veterinarian Dr Zoe Vogels was teaching students about diseases spread through animals.

“What we were covering today were zoonosis which are diseases of animals that people can get,” she said.

“We talked about what diseases come from which animals, the symptoms you might see in people and then how they might protect themselves from getting the diseases.

“They dressed up in PPE and the biggest get-up was level four, so that’s where they need to have gloves, full-on PPE suit, mask, safety glasses and boot covers.”

Dr Vogels said it was important to cover animal diseases as country students were most likely to come across them.

“From a show of hands I had, most of the students had animals, whether it was dogs or cats or horses, and most of them were from farms, whether that’s cattle, sheep or goats,” she said.

“Some of them had pigs on farm as well and they can catch diseases from all of those, so if this can reduce them from getting diseases and getting sick, that’s really important.”

Emma Drake from Parks Victoria said being a part of TAP was a real benefit.

“It’s good to be involved in the local community and it’s really good to spread the word about being a ranger, what rangers do and what national parks are for,” she said.

“Showing different pathways to being a ranger if kids are interested in conservation and the environment and to just get out there and be involved.

“You can’t be what you can’t see so it’s good to show kids all these different pathways to see what they might be interested in.”

Southern Land Bovine Services artificial insemination (AI) technician Luke Wilson said TAP gave him the opportunity to show students a trade they may not have considered otherwise.

“It’s a very unique and specific trade but it’s very agricultural to do with dairy and beef cows,” he said.

“Kids don’t get the opportunity to learn about it so we want to promote it for the younger generation coming through.

“The average age of an AI tech is quite high now so we need these young ones.

“If they get a chance to see it, understand it and learn about it then maybe they’ll pursue it.

“It gives kids the opportunity to do something quite unique and specific – TAP is fantastic.”

TAP coordinator Andrea Vallance thanked everyone for getting involved and being a part of the TAP community.

“The TAP is a partnership between Timboon P-12 School and the agricultural industry, regional businesses and community,” she said.

“Almost 800 different individuals from outside the school have worked with us at school (and on farms and other places) since the TAP started in mid-2012.

“We’re so grateful for all the presenters who ran all the workshops for TAP’s On! 2025.”