HarvestEd Student Agricultural program

HarvestEd is a partnership between the Department of Education, Queensland Virtual STEM Academy and Asia Education Foundation to enhance the opportunity for rural and remote students to engage with the agricultural industry.

The partnership brings together a cluster of schools with agricultural industry professionals in their local communities and around Australia with links to the Asia region. Despite the vast distances, the partnership acknowledges the importance of connecting students into a community of praxis so they can engage, collaborate and innovate.

Since 2021, 71 junior secondary students from Central Queensland, Wide Bay and Darling Downs have worked together to identify local needs, generate new ideas, and solve problems in agriculture using a design-thinking process. Students join together as a virtual community and meet face-to-face for workshops and to share the outcomes of their investigations which explore the agricultural and intercultural connections between local needs and global solutions.

Solutions developed through the community of praxis include redirecting rainfall from towns with heavy rainfall to communities affected by drought, leveraging technology to manage cattle fencing, using technology by attaching a collar to cows to assesses their overall health and raising awareness about the impact that bees have on agricultural and medical industries.

Category Winner 2022: Regional, Remote, Rural Partnership Award

Harvest Ed Program Video