The Archibull Prize is a world renowned competition for Australian school students aged between 9 and 18 that uses the 21st century teaching methodology Project Based Learning (PBL).
PBL invites students to investigate and respond to a challenge, task or project and pursue deep real-world investigations where they:
- Design real and complex projects for learning;
- Think and create in digital and non-digital environments to develop unique and useful solutions by both adapting and improving on current designs as well as the innovation of new possibilities;
- Think analytically and communicate using multi-media formats and engage in authentic assessment; and
- Present their learning via exhibitions.
The Archibull Prize does this by combining Art, Computer Information Technologies and Agriculture.
Students are given a lifesize fibreglass cow, a farming industry, a young farming champion and the theme Feeding Clothing and Powering a Hungry Nation is a Shared Responsibility.
Their Archie artwork is just one of three major challenges the students have to complete to compete for Grand Champion
Thanks to Aussie Farmers Foundation schools were able to study Horticulture for the first time. Lets see what the student studying horticulture did with their Archies
First cab of the rank is Little Bay of Community Schools – who are four primary schools that feed into Matravillle Sports High School who mentor the students. Meet Veggie Patch
Here is a little of the back story.
Our design offers a celebration of the innovative, creative and educational components of the horticultural industry.
The first side of our Archibull features a shipping container farm located in the middle of a busy city centre. This innovation provides a perfect answer to Australia’s continual growth of population and the big challenges of feeding a hungry nation. The shipping container farm is able to provide farmers an additional way to allow the nation to receive fresh, nutritious and local produce.
On the flip side of our Archibull, side 2 highlights the importance of biosecurity in the horticultural industry and the need to maintain high standards of policy.
We have also featured some renewable energy sources that farmers are now utilising on farms as a way of combating climate change.
As your eyes travel between the legs of the Archibull, we have designed a ‘Farm to table’ conveyor belt adorned with the transformation of a seedling into a lettuce. The felt sculptures have been inspired by artist Claes Oldenburg and his pop art soft sculptures. The conveyor belt celebrates the strong cycle of the ‘farm to table’ social movement. We are promoting our viewers to become part of the direct relationship between themselves and farmers.
The head of our Archibull truly celebrates all things green as he has transformed into an overgrown forest, the beauty of plants inspired this bright and eye-catching design. Additionally, the honeycomb patterns highlight the integral position bee’s play in the industry.
Lastly but not the least the back of our Archibull provides an educational, bright and fun message to our viewers, ‘Eat a rainbow’. Individually cut and glued onto the cow we have created a rainbow out of fruits and vegetables. This allows viewers a visual celebration of the importance of fruits and vegetables in our life. Read the full story here
Our second primary school is Calvary Christian School Carbrook Jnr Campus. Meet ‘Herb’ the Horticultural Cow
And here is just a smidgen of Herb’s back story
Herb is designed to highlight the importance of eating fruits and vegetables as part of a balanced diet. Keeping healthy is a theme throughout the Year 5 cohort and we researched what the daily requirements are for a healthy person and identified many different fruits and vegetables.
Australia’s horticulture industry comprises fruit, vegetables, nuts, flowers, turf and nursery products. Many of the produce grown is seasonal and farms employ people in the picking season to help harvest the crops.
The different fruits and vegetables that we placed onto Herb, are designed to represent Australia’s horticulture industry. We placed Herb’s feet in pots and added ‘grass’ to highlight our growing theme. Fruits were added to the pots to represent the fruit that fall from the trees each season. Herb was painted green to signify the ground that provides the soil and nutrients for the plants to grow in.
The vine was added to signify a growing plant that spreads its leaves and vines in order to produce fruit, vegetables and new plants. This vine also represents the farmers of our community who spread their produce across our country to keep us all healthy. Without farmers in Australia we would have to purchase food from overseas, this would mean an even higher cost for food, a lack of job opportunities for a lot of people and we would not have as much control over the quality of the food we receive. Learn more about Herb here
Our next Archie comes from Hurlstone Agricultural High School. Meet Brahman: The Sacred Cow
The full backstory of Brahman: The Sacred Cow can be found here . This is what the Hurlstone team said that makes her unique
Our Archie is unique due to the intricacy of design and of its cultural influences. It is more than what it seems on the surface, with each design detailing a story that flows along the body of the cow. Our vision is a strong celebration and honours the enterprise of Horticulture. The nourishment of the population and the fulfilment of health and wealth in our society is central to the piece. Our theme connects culture, religion, art and agriculture. It directly alludes to the multicultural population in our local community and recognises our responsibilities as global citizens.
The material practices employed in the installation Brahman: The Sacred Cow also emphasises the concept of abundance; every aspect from the patterns and symbols to the cornucopia express the wealth of food and the health and happiness it provides. The golden cart holding the beautiful collections and displays of the fruits and flowers further clarifies true beauty of horticulture.
Our artwork augments the true value of the cow by using gold as a symbol of wealth, luxury and decadence. This adds to the artwork’s unique qualities, as it contrasts strongly the traditional notions of a cow. The earthly connotations associated with horticulture and produce is effectively elevated to a spiritual level.
Our third primary school studying Horticulture was Gwynneville Public School. Meet DEM – E – TER the Greek Goddess of Agriculture.
This is what the students had to say about their goddess
Our sculpture examines the many components of the Horticulture Industry and the significance of this industry to the Australian population in general. Horticulture represents “Everything that Grows” and comes from the Latin word “Hortus” meaning “garden”. This includes flowers, fruits and vegetables, grasses, nuts and spices.
On the front of our cow we have pictures of different fruits and vegetables, with raindrops and circles representing the importance of rain and sunshine to the growth of all plants. The leg at the front has a picture of a plant showing one of the processes in plant production – germination.
We have added bees to the bee-hind of our cow. The hive joins the front and the back of the cow showing a correlation between the flowers and fruit and vegetables. Bees are the backbone of food production as well as flower and plane reproduction and without these busy little workers pollination of our flowers wouldn’t occur.
The back of our cow has a floral design representing all flowers with grass on the back legs.
As a result of our Fresh Food Tour of a local supermarket we used the design of a re-usable bag of “Eat a Rainbow Every Day” to outline various fruits and vegetables and then sponge the colour on the cow.
The vibrant colours of the flowers emphasise how bees are attracted to them to pollinate. Read more about Dem-e-ter here
A truly stunning start. Watch this space to see what students have done with Wool, Cotton,Pork, Egg and Poultry, Sheep and Cattle and Grains
