Students will have to be busy bees if they want to take part in a student competition themed ‘The Buzz About Bees’ being run by an agronomical research station in Warwick.
The competition, co-ordinated from the Hermitage Research Facility on Yangan Road, is open until 23 June, but there’s a lot to do so students will have to get buzzing.
And be warned, it’s not just for locals. The competition already has registrations from more than 4800 students from 165 schools across Australia.
Hermitage is a major centre for plant breeding and agronomic studies on agricultural crops of Queensland and northern New South Wales. It’s best known for its research into barley breeding (pathology and biotechnology), sorghum breeding (physiology and biotechnology) pulse breeding (chickpeas and mungbeans) and agronomy.
But this year’s competition is a honey of a subject – the importance of bees. There are three award categories – hands-on experiments in the plant science project, art in agriculture where an art project is designed to link art and science in a creative way and the world’s first mobile game, the QuestaGame Pest Invaders, that takes students outdoors on a BioQuest to understand, and ultimately help protect, life on the planet.
The competition is designed to give students a taste of the science behind the agriculture supply chain and to open up the importance of the world of apiary to them.
At the end of it all, there’s an Awards Day and Ag Science Expo, where winners who can be present will be given their awards. There’s a great advantage to students from local schools taking part, as all competition entrants can attend the expo and listen to keynote speakers, interact with scientists and Hermitage staff and try out the interactive agricultural science displays.
Hermitage is a State Government facility of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.
Remember, you have to ‘bee’ in it to win it.
