During July and August, Year 7 students have been visiting Yarra Ranges Technical School on various days to be immersed in a real-time simulation investigating and calculating ‘best buys’. Students responded to different scenarios to design an online urban farm and keep it operating productively.
Using statistics and graphs, they had to monitor conditions to evaluate what their crops needed each year to succeed and profit. This included water, fertilisers, pollinators in the form of bee hives, green houses and many more options. They then created an appealing cafe lunch menu using their farm outputs, bartering for other goods they might need for their cafe.
Teams developed marketing strategies and sold their menu items to Yarra Ranges staff, competing to make the most sales and increase their profits before the final challenge. Lastly, students used the income earned from their farm and cafe to evaluate different options to assist them in completing a ‘uber eats’ robotic delivery challenge. Students coded an omnidirectional robot to negotiate obstacles as their delivery vehicle.
Below are some reflections from Year 7 Blue students:
It was the best mix between IT and Maths I've ever experienced. It was so amazing to see that we could grow our own digital crops, make our own menus with the crops we've grown, make our own market and coding robots to weave around obstacle courses.
— Stephie J
All these really fun and amazing activities that we did gave me a better understanding about all the things farmers have to actually do to create a basic market. Things such as cropping, planting, growing, watering, waiting, creating, designing, building and selling. I can't wait to someday come back here!
— Ella S
It was different Maths than what I would have expected.
— Daniel B
