Farming life in classroom

Teachers from the metropolitan and surrounding areas spent time on Narrogin farms on Monday and Tuesday last week, getting a hands-on experience in food production.

Teacher FX, short for teacher farm experience, is a jointinitiative by Rabobank’s WA Client Council and CQ University Australia, which aims to bridge the urban-rural divide.

Rabobank WA Client Councilco-chairman Veronica Davies said the program was originally Student FX but believed lessons about farm life could reach more students if teachers were involved.

“Two of the biggest issues we’ve got is bridging the rural-urban divide and promoting agriculture, food and fibre to students — there’s disconnect in even local country schools,” she said.

“Kids that live in town don’t actually go out on a farm now.”

Jenna Pike, a teacher at Warnbro Community High School, said teachers involved were exposed to how STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) could be incorporated into theagricultural industry.

“We visited four farms, we saw sheep and GPS tracking in action, and got to analyse that data in practice,” she said. “From my perspective, a lot of the kids think that their food comes from packets, tins, fast food. They don’t actuallyrealise where our food comes from.

“So I think that’s what I’ll bring back — is a bit of my experience that there are real life farmers that grow this food for us.”