Australian Red Meat STEM Demonstration and Training Boxes (Stage 1)

At the recent AMPC WHS Spotlight event, the dinner guest speaker, Kate Munari, stated that at the age of 16, she had no idea of a career path for herself. At a pivotal point in her life, the Australian Defence Force presented at her school in Northern Sydney, and she immediately knew that being a helicopter pilot in the Australian Defence Force was her calling, and it was. This project application aims to create a similar ‘calling’ moment for young people while they are still in school, encouraging them to consider the Technical roles available in the Australian red meat processing sector at various levels, including trade, diploma, degree, and post-degree levels. Stage 1 will invest in developing nine hands-on education boxes that can be used at shows (e.g., Easter shows, local county shows), school fete days, and within processing plant open days. AMPC would have access to these boxes for industry promotion. The boxes will also be evaluated to determine if they provide an additional lens for undertaking recruitment and interview activities. Depending on the deployment logistics, the boxes will be used to demonstrate visually the range of technical opportunities in the industry. This would be by observing a JBS or AMPC member using the contents of the box. If the deployment allows, participants could actually use the contents themselves. Finally, the boxes could be used within the plant to set hands-on learning and development programs for interviews and further development of existing staff, both in white-collar and technical fields. If successful, stage two would look at how this concept could be deployed to schools and mapped to the curriculum. If successful, this will create opportunities for other processors to engage with students and promote the extensive opportunities in red meat processing