Hajar Mehdi, Lily Harris, Alicia Cann, Gabby Sinclair, Jed Ferguson and Sakhi Baba were among the Greater Shepparton Secondary College agriculture students to receive high praise for their entries in the Soil Week Australia schools competition.
Greater Shepparton Secondary College agriculture students’ understanding of soil health issues attracted high praise from judges of a national competition.
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The Year 9 students submitted posters or PowerPoint presentations to the Soil Week Australia schools competition in November on the theme of ‘healthy soil, agriculture and climate’’.
While they didn’t take out the major prize, organisers went out of their way to contact teacher Charlotte Drinnan to pass on their praise for the students’ understanding of the importance of soil health and how that linked to carbon sequestration, agricultural production and climate change.
Mrs Drinnan came across the competition via a regenerative agriculture teachers’ Facebook page and thought it would be the perfect fit for her students.
“We’ve been studying the subject Sense of Humus, which covers off on regenerative practices, healthy soils, biodynamics and holistic management and the the timing and content of the competition were perfect for their major assessment,” she said.
One of the entries singled out for high praise from the judges was Gabby Sinclair’s poster.
“I wanted to inform people about how many (current) practices are not sustainable,” Gabby said.
“I also wanted to provide some information on ways to solve some of the problems and the value of Indigenous land management.”
Lily Harris’ and Cody Fairless’ entries also attracted the judges’ attention, with Lily submitting a poem that contrasted sustainable and unsustainable practices.
“I wanted to take a creative approach of looking into and understanding the issues,” Lily said.
Jed Ferguson’s and Sakhi Baba’s PowerPoint covered off on the carbon cycle; Alicia Cann and Sophie Cairns tackled regenerative practices; Hajar Mehdi also submitted a PowerPoint on the soil health theme; and Helen Nguyen’s poster looked into the carbon cycle, the soil food web and the small water cycle.
In an email to Mrs Drinnan, competition convenors Bev Middleton and Calvin Muller said the quality of the group’s entries was “wonderful”.
“The creativity of the artwork or the stories and presentation was informative, showed good research, and importantly told the story well,” they wrote.
“The judges thought the entries comprehensively covered the topic engaging with the audience to outline the key concepts.”
Each entry won a JB Hi-Fi voucher to the value of $100, which the students said they would probably use to buy music-related merchandise and/or CDs.
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