Humanities 

It’s been a fortnight of excursions for Humanities students.

Here are some highlights:

Bravo, Cheeky Cider  

Earth & Us students have continued their tour of local agricultural sites by visiting the Cheeky Cider Orchard at Bunbartha. As they did at the Dookie Robotic Dairy, students focused on ideas of sustainability, efficiency and addressing challenges. Here are some ideas that stuck with Brock, Greg, Amy, Olivia and Ty:

• The orchard grows apples, apricots, cherries and plums. They planted a new variety of apples named “Bravo” about a year ago. We tasted them.
• They have to find fruit pickers who come from different places and it usually takes one hour to pack one fruit bin.
• Supermarkets have very clear specifications about the produce they take. They reject ones that don’t meet the standards.
• They use the apples they cannot sell to turn into cider, so they are being efficient with all the apples they grow.
• Trees are being planted closer together so more fruit can be produced.
• They are reducing food waste by using the apples you can’t eat (because of bruising, discolouration or bird pecks) to make cider. They mainly use only the juice out of them.
• A challenge that the orchard faces is trying to find workers to pick the fruit. Fruit flies are also a big challenge in Australian orchards.
• They are bringing technologies into their industry. They are getting drones to collect data and identify problems in the orchard. They are also getting self-driving tractors to water and fertilise the trees. They are also getting a machine that can tell you the sugar content so all apples of that type will taste the same.

We thank Mark for his time, and Jenny for arranging the visit.

Photo 1: Earth & Us students try the new “Bravo” variety.

Touring Parliament

Meanwhile, Riot, Rampage & Reform students visited Victoria’s Parliament House in Melbourne. Bridget, Ryley and Theo shared some reflections:

What did you enjoy most?

• It’s interesting that the Victorian Parliament incorporates a lot of gold and the structure was never completed. I also really enjoyed going to the ACMI Cinemas after lunch.
• I liked the seats, the pretty gold, the paintings and the décor.
• I liked the red house (the Legislative Council).

How does this relate to what we’ve learnt in class?

• We were doing freedom of speech and we learnt that, in some countries, you can get arrested for saying that the leader is not good.
• We have been learning about parliament and on the excursion we learnt a lot about the Legislative Assembly, the Legislative Council, the library, the paintings and laws.
• We saw how parliament really works.

Photo 2: Some Riots students see Parliament House from a different angle.