Herd Testing

This week I have had the opportunity to carry out some more rather interesting activities.
1. Herd Testing
This is where individual samples of milk is taken from every milking animal and it taken to the lab and tested for various things such as milk fat, protein and somatic cell count and volume.  This is only a snap shot but helps determine factors such as:

• high or low producing animals
• infections in udder eg. mastitis

(Somatic cells are all the body cells except reproductive cells)

Herd testing is on a commercial farm is generally done 3-4 times in a year.(It is a very costly exercise) However because DairyNZ is a research farm and because there are so many trials occurring, and it also builds up quite a lot of data.

2. Jen Cuts
Also known as a low cut harvester.  This little machine enables you to cut crops to various crops and harvest it and weigh it and work out the amount of dry matter in a block.

3. Rising Plate meter

This is a farm management tool that farmers use to quantify pasture cover on a farm.  It is one of the tools that is used to help allocate pasture to stock.  If you do it pre and post grazing measurements this ensures that the pasture has been grazed enough and or the stock are getting enough food. Basically the plate meter measures the compressed height of the grass and using an equation (which has been calibrated) converts the grass height into kg DM (kilograms dry matter)

If you are interested in more about the Rising Plate meter go to the following website where it explains it. www.dairynz.co.nz/media/253639/1-15_Using_the_Rising_Plate_Meter.pdf

4. Blood testing 

 

There are a lot of things that can be tested through an animal's blood.  Blood is usually collected through the tail vein, however if it can not be drawn from here it can be taken from the jugular vein in the neck of the animal.
Once the blood is taken off the animal it is stored on ice, then it is returned to the lab to be processed which could involve it being spun in a centrifuge to separate the plasma from the red and white blood cells.

Induction Symposium

All 21 teachers selected from all around NZ, from the primary, intermediate and secondary teaching sectors arrived in Wellington at the start of February for our 3 day Induction symposium.  We were joined on the first day by some of the teachers hosts and principals and or HOD's.  It was a was an interesting day, especially listening to the hosts point of view about what they think is important for the New Zealand public should know about Science. I enjoyed getting involved with the the activity that was organised for the afternoon.  I could see how I could use this back in my classroom.
Day 2 was a nuts and bolts day - a lot of information.
Day 3 was a very challenging day as my head was hurting.  I found Sabina's presentation so much more practical than Rosemary Hipkins, I found some of the vocab new and found it hard to understand some of it, I think I will have to come back to this and revisit it when I am further down my journey.  I will have to do some research on the ideas she presented.

Week 1 DairyNZ

Firstly I had an induction at the Dairy NZ headquarters at Newstead - Hamilton.  A HR representative for the organisation spent a good hour with me explaining DairyNZ's structure.
DairyNZ http://www.dairynz.co.nz/ purpose is to secure and enhance the profitability, sustainability and competitiveness of New Zealand dairy farming.
DairyNZ was formed in 2007 from the vote of farmers and where two independent organisations Dairy Insight and Dexcel were merged.  Dairy NZ is independently run band governed by a farmer-elected board.  It is funded by farmers through a levy on milksolids.  Through this levy, farmers invest in much of the work carried out through Dairy NZ.
There are many branches within the organisation, I am part of the Research and Development Team where there are many sub branches including Business, Economics and People, Sustainability, Productivity, Feed & Systems, Animal Science, and Science Support, which is where I am located.

The organisation has developed good pathways from entry level right through to Principle Scientists. They have a range of positions in the Research & Development branch:
Principle Scientist, Senior Scientists, Post doc Scientists, PHD /MA Students, Science Interns, Senior Research Technicians, Research Technicians and Assistant Research Technicians.
They also explained that there are a lot of different areas that are explored Systems, Modelling/Biometrics, Reproduction, Nutrition, Lactation Biology, Animal Welfare and Dairy training just to name a few.

The team at Lye Farm at Dairy NZ made me extremely welcome,  I have managed to get be to get involved with various amounts of things.  I have fed cows, cut grass for analysis,  carried out tiller densities, and read....

What I have found from observation that the team work needed for this kind of work is huge, everyone is very helpful and works all together, regardless on which trial they are working on.  It goes to show you that Science is a not solo job!
I look forward to next week.

Introduction to programme - What am I actually doing!

2016 is a year of change for me. I have been lucky enough to be selected to be a Participant Teacher in the Royal Society Science Teacher Leadership Programme. This is a 1-18 month programme and occurs in two phases.
For the first six months of the year:

• I will be kindly hosted by DairyNZ and get to experience Science in action,
• I will also be involved with professional learning focused on the Nature of Science strand of the national curriculum.  
• I will participate in a intensive Leadership programme which will help me identify my leadership style and enhance my leadership skills
• I will be making connections with various people digitally and face to face

Following this I will return to school and help redevelop our Junior Program and look at incorporating a lot more of NOS.

I am really looking forward to this learning journey and I hope to share what I learnt with you all and look forward to working with you all.