Belinda Howse – Margaret River Senior High School

Belinda Howse says she fell in love with agriculture during her first job as a lab/field assistant with CSIRO, Animal Production. This work led Ms Howse to working for 12 years with Department of Agriculture in Entomology, based out of South Perth and the Ord River Project in Kununurra. She has now been at Margaret River Senior High School for the past seventeen years teaching Food Science and Technology and, more recently, Agriculture.  Ms Howse’s students have opportunities to work with livestock, horticulture, viticulture, bees, aquaponics and hydroponics.  Ms Howse says that she believes the integration of contemporary technologies into learning programs will ensure students and rural communities will have the tools to continue to lead the sustainable production of quality food and fibre consumers desire. 

Geo-locating bees using tablets/mobile phones

Students will learn how to use a geo-location app to identify and map insects.  The app was developed by DPIRD WA (Dept Primary Industry, Research and Development for Western Australia) to assist in biosecurity.  Students will build a native bee hotel and learn to identify native bees using the App. Students will also attach a bar code to their hotel to scan using the App so we can locate all hotels on Google Maps.