The Country 30/09/25: Scott Graham talks to Hamish McKay

Award-winning Sydney-based science and agricultural teacher on why he’s bringing a team of 39 students to New Zealand.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right heading across the ditch now across the Tasman and
we're joined by a man who has a great focus
on young people in agriculture in particular, in fact, that's
where his field of study is and increasing enrollments engagements
in both tertiary and secondary education around agriculture and was

(00:24):
awarded a couple of years back the Prime Minister's Prize
for Excellence in Science Teaching.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Scott Graham joins us now today, Scott.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
How are you hi much? Going great?

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Thank you good? Good good.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
So now your current role you teach on a daily
basis and you're still you're involved in your PhD.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
And how's all that going? Yeah, going good.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
I'm teaching full time had of Agriculture department at my
school and teaching students from years nine through to twelve,
so fourteen through to eighteen years old, and then also
doing part time PhD in Agricultural edtion on the side.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
So you're at Barker College. Whereabouts is that? Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
So it's in the north short of Sydney, so about
thirty kilometers north of Sydney CMD.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Okay, so that's quite close into the city to be
and you have a good numbers involved in the egg
sector and the egg learning sector at your school.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
Absolutely. I mean we're surrounded by high rise apartments, age
to time stories, so we're well and truly in the city.
But yeah, we have around up to four hundred students
studying agriculture from years nine to twelve currently.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
Wow, that's remarkable because obviously you would have been aware
of what was happening here where there was sort of
a bit of a pullback on what we were going
to do at terrestiary level with our students and agriculture,
but we swung back. Thankfully things have been sort of reinstated.
But that that's remarkable because I was thinking thirty k's
north of Sydney will let you know, and as you say,
high rises and everything, what's a sort of a typical

(01:58):
agricultural program look for like for those students from the
year nine through to year twelve.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
Yeah, so in the younger years and unite and ten,
we do units based around enterprises, so we might do
lamb production for a term, we might do meat chickens
for a term, might do vegetable production for a term.
Once you get to yet eleven and twelve and the
leaving certificate, the high school certificate. You're looking at broader
animal and plant production, the science behind the genetics, the

(02:27):
Pesson diseases, the breeding, all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
Really yeah, okay, so.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
You know, like covering all I guess every sort of
facet of agriculture and setting them up for the future.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Now you're bringing the team out to New Zealand, is
that right? Yeah? We are.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
So we've got thirty nine students coming over tomorrow and
we're heading over for eleven day tour. I guess we
call it a paddic to plate tour. It's an agriculture
but also environment to us, so a little bit of
geology involved there as well, because you know, New Zealand
is such a great place to see so much done

(03:09):
so well in such a small area in terms of
being able to travel between so many different things compared
to Australia obviously the US distances. So yeah, we're heading
into Auckland about five days on the North Island and
then heading to the South Islands for six days and
heading out of Queenstown.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
It sounds like it sounds terrible, sounds terrible.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Scott fantastic Trump Okay, so I just just pick out
what you may foresee has been a couple of highlights
for these twenty nine young people are going to have
such a great trip here.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yeah, so this is actually a third time we've run
this trip, and so I guess I've got a pretty
good idea of what I with personal highlights for me,
and I'm sure we'll be again. We'll do a lot
of different things, but some of them. You know, the
dairy aspect is obviously major in New Zealand and so
seeing the dairy processing factory, cheesemaking. We had an incredibly

(04:07):
beautiful lamb property down in the South Island, which you
know is amazing for the kids to see. Of course,
deer and venison is a something that's quite large in
New Zealand and so that's definitely highlight. Keyw fruit this
year we're going to electric cherries in the South Island,
but the world's first fully electric farm, so I think
that'll be interesting. Yeah, and then the Wai Mangu volcanic

(04:33):
Valley and Rangetoto Islands near Auckland, so the geology aspects
as well for the students.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
That that is going to be a famous trip.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
So do they have to fundraise for a while and
what would he be doing accommodation was is it billeted
or how are you doing that?

Speaker 2 (04:49):
How does that work out?

Speaker 3 (04:51):
Yeah? So the students kind of, you know, do a
little bit of their own fundraising, but the we're staying
in hostels along the way basically not builiting this time.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
Yeah, no, no, so that looks fantastic. So what did
you start out scott as somebody who did you come
from a farming background? How did you sort of your
science teaching and into agriculture.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
How did how did that play out.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
For somebody who's who's sounding listening to this and going
I'd love to do that?

Speaker 2 (05:22):
What's your background and what was your journey? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (05:26):
So I grew up in Sydney and I had no
agricultural background. I guess I didn't know really much about
agriculture before I started it in year seven at school
because it was compulsory and I ended up just really
enjoying it, finding it really interesting, really important, and took
it through to the end of high school and ended
up doing agricultural science at university. And so I've just

(05:47):
always been quite passionate about it from that early high
school age, but no background before that. And I think
that's you know, there's such a need for metropolitan people
to go into agriculture, into the non production roles that
might that might be rurally or regionally, but they also
might be city based. So I think I can kind

(06:09):
of relate to the students that we have at our
school who are all metropolitan students who don't have a
background in agriculture. So I think, you know, in Australia,
and I think the stats are pretty close in New Zealand,
but two thirds of Australians live in just five cities
and in metropolitan areas, and so I think that's a

(06:32):
really an untapped market for student interest in agriculture.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah, fantastic, And of course these will certain me on
the side of the Tasman, but I know what I
follow on the other side of these are quite boom
times in terms of farm gate returns, so I guess
one or two of them might be look at and go,
this might be quite a good future.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
Look, absolutely, we definitely have students who have grown up
metropolitan and do end up going to work on farms
down the track, owning farms. They don't have farms in
their family, so they're not the type of student that's
going to get passed down a farm in the future typically,
but they definitely are willing to go really and regionally.

(07:18):
And I know some of them do end up working
in the production space, which is great. If that's what
they choose to do, it's fantastic, But a lot of
them also end up in that maybe consultancy roles, those
kind of support roles to production in the rural regional
areas or in metropolitan areas in you know, whether it's

(07:39):
the science side of things or the agribusiness side of things.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
We're going to Scott Grime here to Agriculture Barker College
in Sydney, just thirty k's north of the Sydney CBD.
Fascinating and Scott, I hope we can have a check
to you after the trip to get some of the
real takeouts from this trip for the from these youngsters
coming to New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (07:59):
That'd be great. Hope we can do that.

Speaker 3 (08:01):
Yeah, we'd love to do. Thanks, Amish, ye

Speaker 2 (08:03):
Thank you very much.