Taradale students know their onions

Taradale Primary School students have certainly been busy designing and building their own mini-farm at the school.
The students were keen to show off a huge range of seedlings they had planted in the garden beds.
One youngster took the Mail's reporter for a tour, correctly pointing out onions, broccoli, spinach, lettuce, beetroot and many other seedlings.
The tiny school has 13 students and all of them are involved in the project.
Teacher Chris Burgess said the garden had been there for a few years but desperately needed some attention.
"It has now more than doubled in size and the students are learning a lot from it because the project is linked into the curriculum," Mr Burgess said.
Practical lessons such as the life cycle of a plant, how to measure garden beds and how much soil each will need are just a few examples of the benefits of the project.
"The students also use the produce in their cooking program and while some students are maintaining the garden, others are inside writing up recipes and researching background information about the vegetables they are growing."
He said the next stages of the mini-farm included extending the orchard and then fencing off an area at the back of the school to house a range of animals.
The children have already suggested a range of animals including sheep, pigs and a milking cow.
"We have also had suggestions for a tiger, camel and an elephant ... we are working on those," he smiled.
"The idea of the mini-farm is to differentiate ourselves from other schools but most importantly it will help the students learn about sustainability as well as the needs of different animals as part of their studies."
Meanwhile, Mr Burgess is about to head off to New York on June 17 for a few weeks to participate in an international educational project that researches food and its sources in countries around the globe.
He teaches part-time at Taradale and the rest of the week he teaches environmental education at Carton Primary School in Melbourne.
"Carlton is the only school in Melbourne involved in this project ... it involves about 30 schools around the world working together online and sharing information.
"I am also looking at getting Taradale involved in the project."
He said the June conference would involve representatives from Australia, Ireland, India, Ghana and Canada.
"Basically we will be discussing the types of food grown within about 160km of the major cities in those countries. I have never been to America before - it will really interesting."