Latest news with #SouthernCrossUniversity
News.com.au
4 days ago
- Business
- News.com.au
Australia's Best Teachers: Fixing our maths, science teaching ‘crisis'
Two in five Australian high school students are learning maths from teachers without formal qualifications in the subject. But universities are boosting teachers' skills through new short courses – and are calling for support to rapidly expand them to tackle the nationwide issue. News Corp has this week launched the third year of its Australia's Best Teachers advocacy series to celebrate the positive impact educators have and tackle workforce challenges in our schools. This year's series is presented in partnership with Officeworks, Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools, Education Perfect and Big Ass Fans. Teachers around the country, through no fault of their own, are being forced to teach subjects outside their areas of expertise due to workforce shortages. A 2024 report by the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute found maths was taught by out-of-field teachers 40 per cent of the time. And the most recent Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership workforce survey found 20 per cent of maths teachers, 29 per cent of technology teachers and 11 per cent of science teachers had no formal qualifications in those areas. Southern Cross University and Charles Sturt University have each developed microcredentials to upskill out-of-field teachers in maths, trialling them on pilot cohorts. Maths lecturer and Southern Cross course co-ordinator Lewes Peddell said out-of-field teaching had reached a 'crisis point' where thousands of students went from years 7 to 10 without being taught by a teacher with a maths degree. Dr Peddell's 350-hour course is designed to upskill teachers and improve their 'confidence and competence' in six main areas of the maths curriculum. 'We have to remember that these are qualified teachers – they're just not qualified in mathematics, so it's about finding ways to bridge what they know from their own discipline areas into teaching maths,' he said. 'This micro-credential is a drop in the bucket, but it is a drop.' Mathematical Association of NSW executive director Darius Samojlowicz said out-of-field teaching had become so common that he 'quite regularly' encountered non-maths-trained teachers who have become head of their school's maths faculties. 'We can't solve this problem overnight but we can support those teachers who are in this situation right now,' he said. Dr Janelle Hill coordinates a short course for out-of-field teachers at Charles Sturt. 'There's an overall teacher shortage and a very unequal distribution in regional and rural and remote communities,' she said. 'It's a tricky one to solve, but something like this microcredential is making a big difference.' Kat Crow, head teacher at St Paul's Anglican Grammar School in rural Victoria, said she benefited enormously from the Southern Cross course after feeling 'like a unicorn' among maths teachers. Ms Crow said teachers must be given the time – and money – to access such programs. 'If I didn't have the school assist me with that, I may or may not have been able to make that choice,' she said. Australian Education Union president Correna Haythorpe said STEM graduates were in high demand in the broader economy, so teaching needed better pay and conditions to attract more into the profession. The federal government's $18.5 million micro-credential trial, which includes a range of qualifications besides teaching, will end in June 2026. Education Minister Jason Clare said both student teacher training reform and support for current teachers was needed. 'Part of turning this around is improving teacher training at university to make sure teaching students are taught the fundamentals about how to teach children to read and write and do maths and how to manage disruptive classrooms,' he said.
ABC News
30-05-2025
- Health
- ABC News
DNA in waterways helps SCU researchers map spread of pest and endangered species
A project to map the diversity of life in NSW waterways has found pests, including cane toads, may be more widespread than previously thought. Researchers from Southern Cross University (SCU) collected water samples from 234 locations across 33 estuaries, covering 1,000 kilometres of coastline. They extracted environmental DNA to identify the "living beings" inhabiting the waterways and created unique biodiversity mapping for each one. Lead researcher Maarten De Brauwer said the mapping could help control invasive species and protect endangered ones. He said it revealed cane toads were living further south than previously thought. "For the first survey we did in winter, we found them in the Sandon River," Dr De Brauwer said. "Before that, the buffer zone was north of Yamba. Dr De Brauwer said another surprising find was water buffalo DNA in the Richmond River. "That was a bizarre one — a very strange occurrence," he said. Water buffalo are not usually found in the Northern Rivers region, so the scientists initially thought there had been a sample contamination or a mistake. "My colleague Kait [Harris] and I did a lot of sleuthing and we found out that a farmer there had used water buffalo to train draught horses, apparently," Dr De Brauwer said. "I didn't know this was a thing. "It was quite amazing as they were quite a distance away from the site." Dr De Brauwer said eDNA surveys were a relatively new way to detect what lives in the environment. "Environmental DNA is a term that refers to traces of DNA of any living being," he said. "It can be casuarina trees, it can be rainbow lorikeets, it can be fish, it can be bacteria, or it can be COVID. Dr De Brauwer said samples were collected in summer and winter and filtered for discarded genetic DNA, such as scales, faeces, fur or skin. The DNA was then linked to animal or plant life and added to a digital map. "We can detect threatened species as well," he said. "For example, we found seahorses in quite a few estuaries. One of them was the white seahorse, which is endangered. "So it can be a way of detecting threatened species and then knowing what areas to protect because endangered species are present." The team detected 25 threatened species, from soft corals to fur seals and black cod. In the Sandon River, east of Grafton, they found the DNA of a threatened bird — the varied sittella. In the Richmond River, they found plants that did not yet have a common name. Dr De Brauwer said the survey identified more than 10,000 species across New South Wales, and could be used to monitor changes after natural disasters. "We can track how they recover and, ideally, what promotes recovery," he said. "But … we are just at the start of discovering what we have in the estuaries."
SBS Australia
23-05-2025
- Business
- SBS Australia
Could Australia become a coffee-growing nation?
The coffee's steaming hot at the Happy Frog café in Coffs Harbour in northern NSW. This cup is one of six billion consumed nationwide each year, according to Agrifutures Australia. Unlike most, this one is made with locally grown beans. The cafe's owner is Kim Towner: 'That's been a real passion of mine since I first went into the cafe business, was to buy as close to home as I could. And it's just a win-win all round for everybody, I think. It's beautiful coffee. We get to know the people that have grown it. And that has been probably my biggest, favouritest thing. But of course it's got the low food miles, so it's good for the environment. I know its story.' Australia grows less than half a percent of all the coffee we drink. Producing more sounds a great idea, but is it worth the effort? At Southern Cross University in Lismore, Professor Tobias Kretzschmar is finding out by trialling new trees. 'So we're part of a larger project with the World Coffee Research. They're interested in trialling 20 to 30 coffee varieties all around the globe. So we piggybacked on that global project to be able to trial those varieties in Australia. And our aim for Australia is to find new varieties that are better suited for this environment and better suited for the mechanized conditions of coffee farming in Australia.' Most Australian coffee grows in Queensland or northern New South Wales where farmers face climate challenges. 'They put their money on a variety that's much too vigorous for this environment. So we're looking at something that's semi-dwarf, easy to be machine harvested. So the next stage would be to take the two to three varieties that we're thinking will out-compete the current varieties and trial them at scale.' Globally, coffee exports spiked recently after a run of falls and prices remained volatile due to trade tensions and fears of economic slowdown. Paul Joules is a research analyst with Rabobank. 'In April we did see Arabica prices ease slightly but nonetheless on a year-on-year basis we're still around 100% higher.' And that means ever-rising prices at the coffee shop. So could Australia ever compete with Brazil or Colombia? Professor Tobias Kretzschmar again: 'We're covering around half a percent of what the Australian consumer is drinking at the moment. If we can double that, that'd be fantastic. If we can triple or quadruple that, we'd be punching above our weight.' It's also about finding a coffee style with broad appeal. For clues, scientists have turned to a unique taste wheel which helps analyse the makeup of a particular taste. Dr Ben Liu is behind the taste wheel. 'First we actually have this coffee tasting by different professionals. They work in the coffee industry for decades. And then we actually collect a different type of data from them and from description from them. And then we summarise them with also some of the score for the taste and the flavour of the coffee. And then we bring the exact same sample they taste back to our lab and do carry out analysis. And so we can associate the data from the chemistry also to the taste and the smell of the coffee.' The taste wheel doesn't just identify the flavour of the coffee, but its character as well and uses words as diverse as 'yoghurty', 'apple like' and even dirty. ' So this coffee character wheel basically helps the panel members to actually get an idea of what they think, what could be used to describe the taste, the flavour, or a different mouthfeel they actually feel. But saying that there are some bad words there because there are also some bad taste coffee there. Unfortunately, during our coffee research, (we not just taste the best coffee, we also taste bad coffee as well.' But Dr Liu says Australian grown coffee does have some common characteristics: 'We collect 100 single-origin coffee around Australian farmers. And when we run this tasting panel, the words that keep coming out for Australian coffee are they are sweet and they are fruity and they are nutty and roasty. So that's the thing that's coming up the most for Australian coffee.' For Kim Towner, the decision to use locally grown coffee was simple. 'All of these things you hear different blends and different stories about the coffee. But I just thought it tasted good. And it's super fresh. We know that everybody is getting paid fairly for it. We know that it hasn't had to travel across the ocean and up and down highways to get here. It's just over the hill. You can't get much closer than that. And I think that's important with everything. As much as possible, if we can source from our local area and just use as much of that as we can, we're going to make a big difference to how we look after the planet.'
Forbes
21-05-2025
- Science
- Forbes
Far-Red Light Boosts THC In Some Cannabis Strains And Lowers Energy Use, Study Finds
growing marijuana with LED phyto lighting. purple cannabis leaves. Far-red lights can improve yield and the quality of specific cannabis strains, and reduce energy costs and carbon emissions amid energy-intensive cannabis cultivation, according to a new study. Published in Nature this week, this Australian government-funded study, conducted by researchers from the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development and Southern Cross University, analyzed whether the daily light period to which cannabis plants were exposed could be shortened from 12 to 10 hours by supplementing with far-red light, without sacrificing plant yield or cannabinoid content. The findings suggest that far-red light treatments sometimes enhanced cannabinoid yield in specific strains and, when paired with a 10-hour light schedule, offered about 5.5% energy savings. This would be significant for high-consuming cannabis farming. Cannabis growers in the U.S. use about 1% of the country's total energy, which is more than cryptocurrency mining and all other crops combined, according to a recent study. Far-red light, which sits just beyond the visible spectrum, naturally occurs in sunlight during the early hours of the morning, late in the afternoon, and in shaded spots. Plants have evolved to recognize this kind of light as a cue that they may be shaded by other plants, prompting them to grow taller in search of more sunlight. When far-red light is paired with regular red or white light, it doesn't just trigger growth, but it also enhances photosynthesis. This effect, known as the Emerson enhancement effect, highlights how plants can make more efficient use of different light wavelengths when they work in combination. The research team explored several lighting schedules across three cannabis strains: Cannatonic, known for its high CBD content, and Hindu Kush and Northern Lights, both rich in THC. They compared a traditional 12-hour light cycle with a shortened 10-hour version, along with variations where far-red light was introduced, either at the end of the light phase, the start of the dark phase, or both. In addition to observing changes in plant height, they measured total biomass, which included flowers, leaves, and stems, and analyzed the concentration of various cannabinoids. The results showed that adding far-red light made all the cannabis plants grow taller, especially when the light was used at the end of the day or both before and after lights-off. In some strains, like Cannatonic and Hindu Kush, far-red light combined with a full 12-hour light cycle increased the total weight of the plants, but most of that extra weight came from leaves and stems, not flowers. In fact, flower weight decreased in these cases. The way cannabinoids responded also depended on the strain. Cannatonic had the highest levels of CBD and THC when grown under a regular 12-hour light cycle or when far-red light was added at both ends of the day, but this did not lead to a clear increase in the total amount of cannabinoids per plant, and flower size often dropped. Hindu Kush showed some THC increases with far-red light, especially when it was used both before and after the lights went off. Northern Lights performed better using far-red light right after the main lights turned off, as it led to a strong boost in THC and a 70% increase in total cannabinoid yield compared to the regular light schedule. Researchers, therefore, suggest that growers could increase the potency of these specific cannabis strains while reducing lighting time and carbon footprint by using far-red light. As these effects were seen only in specific cannabis strains, growers should test for themselves whether far-red light works on other strains. Nevertheless, the use of far-red light could potentially help reduce the carbon footprint and make cannabis growing more sustainable, while also maintaining or even boosting yield and quality, and reducing energy costs. 'These findings have significant implications for the cannabis industry, specifically for energy consumption, with electricity being a significant cost for cultivation. Consequently, the preference is to achieve productivity improvements without extending, and ideally reducing, the duration of the artificial lighting period,' the study reads. This is not the first time that the use of far-red light in farming has been studied. Some research shows that its use produced taller cannabis plants but decreased yields, while another study on far-red light in lettuce cultivation showed that intermittent supplementation of far-red light accelerated leaf and bud development, leading to increased yields. This study is in line with others that have analyzed the use of far-red light when growing cannabis. Some research shows that its use produced taller cannabis plants but decreased yields, while others have found that using far-red light in cannabis farming increased plant height but also decreased both flowering and the concentrations of cannabinoids like CBD, THCVA, CBGA, and terpenes in the flowers, compared to a high red-light ratio.
The Guardian
10-05-2025
- The Guardian
NSW forestry agency should be shut down for repeatedly breaking law, critics argue
A former magistrate and one of Australia's most experienced scientists have launched an extraordinary attack on the New South Wales government's logging agency, describing it as effectively a 'criminal organisation' that should be shut down after a string of court convictions. Prof David Heilpern, a NSW magistrate between 1998 and 2020 and now the dean of law at Southern Cross University, said the state's Forestry Corporation should be 'disbanded' as it was was no longer fit for purpose. The corporation has been convicted of more than a dozen environmental offences, including a judgment in the land and environment court last year that found the agency was likely to reoffend and had poor prospects of rehabilitation. 'If they were a bikie group they would be a criminal organisation. Anyone with that number of convictions the vernacular is to call them a criminal organisation,' Heilpern said. 'Are they a criminal organisation within the meaning of the legislation? The answer is no. However, it's clear that it's unprecedented for any statutory organisation to have that number of serious offences over matters of environmental importance.' Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email A NSW Forestry Corporation spokesperson said Heilpern's suggestion that the corporation be compared to a bikie gang was 'ridiculous'. 'Forestry Corporation will not respond to this analogy,' they said. 'Where breaches have occurred, they have been unintentional and without malice. Forestry Corporation deeply regrets any breaches and has heavily invested in its compliance systems and processes to minimise the room for human or technological errors.' Heilpern's comments follow a judgment in the NSW land and environment court last year that fined the Forestry Corporation $360,000 after it failed to accurately map two environmentally significant areas in the Yambulla state forest. The court found the forest agency had logged 53 eucalyptus trees in one of these areas, causing actual harm to the trees and affecting the refuge of native fauna and flora species after the black summer bushfires. The judgment also found the logging of the trees had caused potential harm to three threatened bird species that lived in the forest. In her judgment, Justice Rachel Pepper noted the Forestry Corporation's 'lengthy record of prior convictions for environmental offences' including polluting a forest waterway, inadequate threatened species surveys, unlawful harvesting of hollow-bearing trees, and harvesting in koala and rainforest habitat exclusion zones. Pepper accepted submissions from the state's Environment Protection Authority that the forest agency was likely to reoffend and did not have good prospects of rehabilitation. Heilpern said this demonstrated the Forestry Corporation 'are not fit for purpose which is to lawfully and in an environmentally sound way manage our forests'. 'They aren't offences involving failing to cross a t or dot an i. They are offences involving illegal logging of state forest without appropriate levels of environmental protection. It's completely unprecedented,' he said. 'Whether or not you declare them a criminal organisation, they're clearly not fit for purpose to manage our forests. They should be disbanded.' Sign up to Clear Air Australia Adam Morton brings you incisive analysis about the politics and impact of the climate crisis after newsletter promotion The Minns government has been under pressure over the future of native forest logging, having committed to establishing a 'Great Koala national park' in the state's north before the 2023 election. Areas of the park have continued to be logged while community groups and conservationists wait for a decision from the government about the park's boundaries. The native hardwood forest division of Forestry Corporation has disclosed losses of $72m since 2020-21, including $29m in 2023-24. The scientist David Lindenmayer, a distinguished professor of ecology and conservation biology at the Australian National University, said: 'NSW Forestry Corporation has been prosecuted in the land and environment court repeatedly – what does that tell us about the organisation? 'From any perspective you look at it, this really is a criminal organisation in terms of crimes against the environment, crimes against biodiversity but also crimes against the state's finances. Because when this organisation conducts these crimes it actually loses money for the state.' The Forestry Corporation's spokesperson said logging operations produced 4m tonnes of timber each year and 'as you would expect, the vast majority of these operations are fully compliant with the law'. They said the agency often 'protects more trees in its operations than required by the regulation'. A spokesperson for the NSW agriculture minister, Tara Moriarty, said 'there are comprehensive regulations in place and the minister expects Forestry Corporation of NSW to comply with them'. The Greens MLC Sue Higginson criticised the state government for 'allowing and defending' the agency to continue to operate. 'For the Forestry Corporation, breaking the law and harming the environment and wildlife has become like a game of charades played under the protection of the state,' she said. 'They get caught, investigated, prosecuted, a criminal conviction, a fine – which the public pays – and they carry on and do it all again. 'There is just no integrity, accountability or justice in this model of operation.'
