Agricultural Technology - Year 7

The students had a rich experience in learning about food and animal production.  Interwoven throughout the unit were concepts around the collection and analysis of measurable data.  

Crop Production

Each student was given 10 seedlings in total consisting of green and red lettuce, shallots, coriander and parsley.   

At St John Paul College we were lucky enough to have these excellent facilities for teaching Agriculture. As a result, to enrich the students’ experiences of producing food, each student planted 5 plants in the hydroponics setup and 5 plants in the raised garden beds.

Using the growth of the seedlings as an opportunity to collect and work with data,  variables such as plant height and width were collected, sorted, analysed before the data was presented in graphical form over an 8 week time frame.

In contrast, the plants in the ‘hydro’ have received a constant supply of water and nutrients, as well as protection from the elements under the ‘hoop houses’.  A noticeable difference in the growth of these plants was the enormous size of our lettuce, however the red lettuce wasn’t as red as those grown in the garden beds.

Animal Production

At the beginning of this term we were able to secure 24 fertilised eggs with 15 beautiful little chicks hatching at the end of Week 5.  

Using measurable data such as weight, the students were able to collect,analyse and track the growth of their chickens over a period of 4 weeks.  Out of the 15 chicks, ‘Noodles’ has topped the charts weighing in at 359 grams in a short 4 week period.

The students loved learning about the growth and care of chickens!  Students worked in pairs, caring for their chickens as well as weighing and recording their physical changes as they grew over a 4 week period.  When the chicks were a couple of weeks old, the students let the chickens forage through the garden beds, looking for insects and learning to scratch and peck, whilst fertilising the soil.