Judges for the Archibull Prize visited St Raphael’s Catholic School on October 9 to get their first glimpses of Sow-phie.
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Sow-phie is the school’s entry into the competition and symbolises "sowing" the seeds for attitude change and embracing new technologies in agriculture.
The Archibull Prize is an innovative hands on program that sees urban and rural schools research an agricultural industry and express their findings through artwork.
This year thousands of primary and secondary students, from rural and urban schools, have spent the past two terms exploring the 2017 competition theme ‘Feeding, Clothing and Powering a Hungry Nation is a Shared Responsibility’.
Founder of the Archibull prize, Lynne Strong, said the school had done a wonderful job on their entry.
“They (the school) have embraced the program in the why we hope the program will be embraced,” she said.
“Right from the start you can tell they threw themselves into it 100 per cent. I’m really excited that the school embraced science and technology and have created a cow that will show the world that connection.
Ms Strong said the competition was about respect and awareness of the different agricultural industries.
“It’s about respect for what goes into producing something,” she said.
“What I’ve found is that we get a new respect working with each other and learning each others industries.
“What we want to do is create awareness and appreciation,” she said.
Archibald judge and judge for the Archibull prize, Wendy Taylor, said the work they see is always different.
“There are so many different ways to approach the competition,” she said.
“Even after all the years of the competition we don’t see much overlap between the schools, which is pretty amazing.
“It’s always fascinating seeing what the schools are doing, we have to come and see them because they are three dimensional objects that a photo doesn’t do it justice,” she said.
The students were assisted in their work by Archibull Prize Young Farming Champions, Marlee Langfield and Steph Fowler who helped excite the students about career prospects in Agriculture.
This year the competition will be the main draw card of Australia’s inaugural National AgDay on November 21.