Cotton Australia’s Jenny Hughes visits schools in cities, towns and rural areas to promote a better understanding of the fibre and its industry. She is pictured here with former CA regional manager Janet Barket at Downlands College in Toowoomba. Photo: Cotton Australia

COTTON Australia is launching six new resources for schools with the aim of refreshing the teaching approach through the delivery of a series of engaging and educational activity sets aligned to the Design and Technology, and Science key learning areas of the Australian Curriculum (V9).

Three of the resources are aimed at primary school, and three are aimed at secondary school to Year 10, with each set designed to be used in isolation or as a follow on from each other for a deeper dive into cotton in the classroom. Each resource has a teacher guide, student worksheets and answers, and digital links that include multimedia from primary sources.

The new pack is part of the Primary Industries Education Foundation Australia membership vision to embed the value of Australian food and fibre production into the national psyche through classroom resources, eLearning courses, Farmer Time sessions and other strategies.

Cotton Australia education manager Jenny Hughes said the resources were a significant investment in time, but well worth it to support teachers incorporate current local practices and data about Australian cotton when teaching the Food and Fibre Outcomes from the curriculum.

Ms Hughes said she believed embedded activities will energise young students with a passion for agriculture, and eventually a farming-based career.

“We are dedicated 100 percent to educating Australians about the cotton industry, how our growers are committed to sustainable practices, and why our cotton is considered among the world’s best in strength and quality,” Ms Hughes said.

“We take cotton to the classroom, but we also take the classroom to the cotton fields in farm excursions for students and the very successful Teach the Teacher program where we organise farm and cotton gin tours for teachers who ask farmers face to face about the wonderful fibre they produce.”

Educational material on the Cotton Australia website is consistently the most popular content items online with thousands of unique visits each year as classrooms are encouraged to engage with the content, watch the videos, undertake the experiments and discuss the results.

Those efforts are reinforced at major public events in rural and regional locations and also form a major part of the engagement program at Cotton Australia with a major presence at both the Sydney Royal Easter Show and Brisbane’s EKKA.

Those public efforts also engage tertiary school students, typically from agricultural science, agribusiness, and environmental undergraduates, who use the opportunity to immerse themselves in the cotton world, educate themselves and become an advocate with the public.

In a further connection to PIEFA, Cotton Australia is offering scholarships to support two early career teachers to attend the full PIEFA Conference in Canberra on 19-20 May 2025.

Valued at over $1600 each, the scholarships are open to teachers with a passion for learning and an interest in cotton. Applications close March 28 and further details can be found here.

Source: Cotton Australia