Dairy Australia's online primary school education program, Discover Dairy, has a fresh look and is packed with new and updated curriculum-linked resources to help teachers deliver the Food and Fibre, as well as Health and Nutrition units of the national school curriculum.
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Developed in consultation with teachers, the online hub offers a range of resources including units of inquiry, activity ideas, videos, worksheets and interactives, designed to bring the dairy industry to life in the classroom.
Dairy Australia's schools communications manager, Emma Rundle, said the new Discover Dairy resource hub was an easy tool for teachers to get students excited about key parts of the curriculum.
"The Australian National Curriculum guidelines are always evolving, and so too is our Discover Dairy primary school education program," she said.
"Teaching students about agriculture, food and fibre and health and nutrition are core components of the curriculum so it's important we help equip teachers to deliver these streams in the modern classroom.
"Alarmingly, children are increasingly disconnected from agriculture and lack an understanding of where their food comes from and the important role that our farmers have in providing nutritious, high-quality food in Australia and abroad.
"In addition, primary-school-aged children are missing out on a number of nutrients needed for healthy growth and development.
"As one of the five food groups in the Australian Dietary guidelines, dairy is an important part of children's diets, but nine out of 10 Aussie kids are not getting enough dairy each day, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics' Australian Health Survey."
The Discover Dairy resources highlight the farm-to-plate process, and how the consumption of dairy foods, as part of a balanced diet, can build and maintain strong, healthy bones during childhood and throughout life.
The resources have the flexibility to be adapted to suit teachers' needs and are easily downloaded from the online hub for immediate use.
Kimberlin Education, a specialist education consultancy, supported the development of the resources.
Kimberlin Education's company and education director, Naomi Lindermeyer, said Discover Dairy's resource hub allowed teachers to effortlessly search for and save lesson plans that would best suit the year-level of their class, as well as the particular subject they were teaching.
"While putting together the one-stop-shop resource hub, our research revealed 87pc of teachers said they would like to teach an inquiry led unit to their students based on farm to plate concepts," Ms Lindermeyer said.
"Teachers can select different types of teaching resources such as PDFs, animations and video, depending on how it best fits with the lesson they are planning."
Discover Dairy has been educating students about the importance of the Australian dairy industry since 2007.
Teachers are being encouraged to join the thousands of classrooms who have already discovered dairy and visit the online hub at www.dairy.edu.au.
This story first appeared on Australian Dairyfarmer
