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Listed under:  Economics and business  >  Industries  >  Primary industry  >  Agriculture  >  Fibres (Materials)
Listed under:  Technologies  >  Materials  >  Fibres (Materials)
Video

Building spaghetti bridges

Have you ever tried making a bridge out of dried spaghetti? What about a spaghetti bridge that can support a roadway and small car? Watch as teams of first-year university students reveal and test their designs. How did they decide what kind of bridges to build? Have a go at designing, testing and building your own spaghetti ...

Video

How to design and build a robot in six weeks!

Evan, a mechanical mentor for FIRST Robotic Competition's 3132 'Thunder Down Under', outlines the processes involved in designing, building and testing a robot in six weeks. What influences the team in their design and building processes? Can you think of anything else that might influence the design and build of the robot ...

Online

Meet the food system

This unit of work consists of two parts, supported by lesson plans, slides and handouts and teachers guides. The first part examines the food system as a complex network that is deeply connected to health, society, and the environment. The second part explores key milestones in the history of agriculture, with a focus on ...

Online

How do you like your eggs?

This is a teacher resource containing a sequence of inquiry relating to egg production systems used by egg farmers in Australia. It contains material to assist planning, implementing and assessing a research task about the egg production systems and the management techniques used to produce eggs, the claims associated with ...

Online

ABS: national regional profile, 2007-2011

This is a digital resource provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which can be used to investigate data relating to the economy, population and people, industry, and environment and energy of selected regions in Australia. The resource contains maps and enables a region to be searched based on a range of geographical ...

Interactive

Chicken farming in the living world: Stage 1

Chickens are fascinating animals and provide students with an interesting subject matter to discuss the many aspects of our living world. This interactive course for students explores the question 'How do humans use plants and animals?' and comprises a series of modules and supporting videos. Students will plan, design ...

Video

The innovator

This is a short animated film highlights the versatility of wool as a natural fibre. The wordless film journeys through the ages and offers a unique view on how wool has been used - and continues - to clothe humans. The video provides an humourous stimulus resource to highlight the range of properties of wool.

Video

Sam the Lamb: Does wool burn?

This short entertaining video, narrated by ‘Sam the Lamb’ and 'Professors' Madeleine and Daisy test which fabrics burn easily and which fabrics are the most flame resistant. Sam and his science team test the flammability of a range of synthetic and natural fabrics including polyester, polar fleece, cotton and wool.

Video

Sam the Lamb: needs of sheep

This short entertaining video, narrated by ‘Sam the Lamb’ and a wool-growing family show where their sheep live, what they eat and drink and how they ‘chew their cud’. Viewers will discover what a herbivore is, and how many stomachs sheep have. The video introduces rotational grazing and how farmers look after their sheep ...

Text

Cotton Australia: posters

This page provides links to 5 posters that can downloaded as PDFs. The posters include: field to fashion process, sustainable cotton farms and a map showing where cotton is grown. Variations of the posters are available for primary and secondary students. The web page also provides a link to order free hard copies if required.

Image

Cotton Australia photo library

This is a library of freely reusable photos and videos of the modern Australian cotton industry. Photos and videos are of the farms, practices, crop and the technology used to grow and process the cotton crop. They include the plant at various stages, flowers, bolls, farm machinery like pickers and seeders, bales and cotton gins.

Text

Cotton Australia fact sheets

This library provides a series of one to two page fact sheets on a range of topics related to the Australian cotton industry including: an overview of the industry, history of the cotton industry in Australia and in the world; economics of Australian cotton; biotechnology; climate challenges and cotton; properties of cotton ...

Interactive

Let's make slime!

This resource explains how to make slime using cornflour to produce something called a non-Newtonian fluid. A non-Newtonian fluid is a substance which has properties of a liquid and a solid. This means it can flow like a liquid, but also can have a set shape. It all depends on the amount of force you apply to it. In this ...

Interactive

Wing loading

Wing loading is a measurement that relates the mass of an aircraft or bird to the total wing area. This resource provides an interactive for students to compare flight capabilities of planes with birds, matching those that are the most similar.

Online

Kites

In this practical activity, students will learn about types of kites, some kite history and how kites fly before making and flying a kite themselves. The activity includes a teacher guide and student worksheet.

Video

Marla Spivak: Why bees are disappearing

This is a video of a TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) talk by Professor Marla Spivak about the dramatic decline in the number of bees. The 16-minute video begins with a discussion of why humans should care about bees, including their critical importance for the world's food supply. Professor Spivak explains that ...

Video

Watering the largest river red gum forest

This nine minute video explores the importance of environmental flows to maintain the ecological health of the Barmah-Millewa Forest in the Murray Darling Basin. This forest is a RAMSAR site and an icon site of the Living Murray with great social, economic, cultural, environmental and spiritual significance. While the forest ...

Video

Sam the Lamb: properties of wool

This short video, narrated by ‘Sam the Lamb’ and a group of young wool enthusiasts, explores the properties of one of nature’s most versatile fibres. Viewers will discover how wool can stretch and return to its natural shape when worn; why wool is safe to wear around campfires and in the sun, and how wool can manages moisture ...

Video

Precision Sheep Management: video

This is a video (4:09 min) about the University of New England’s Kirby Research Station and how its work with sheep has been transformed by technology, particularly the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag. The video is presented by members of the Enhanced sheep wellbeing and productivity research program and includes ...

Video

Becoming a Wine Maker

This is a short clip in which a winemaker describes his job and industry including some of his daily tasks, the location of the winery in south-east Queensland’s Granite Belt Region, and the role of that winemaking plays in the agrifoods industry. The winemaker, Peter, works at the Queensland College of Wine Tourism and ...