* Ag. Science *

rainbowtrout

wayhey wrote: »

rainbowtrout, I'm just flying through I haven't checked the whole thread so feel free to tell me if you explained it before and I'll go looking for it.

Could you explain the formation of soil colloids? Especially with regard to the "polyvalent cations" and water matrix and all that? I do Chemistry but I actually can't understand what the book is on about! Or maybe you know somewhere that has good notes on it? The Rapid Revision doesn't cover it either...

Chemical reactions in the soil cause the formation of negative charges on the soil colloids such as clay

Polyvalent Cations (ions with a number of positive charges such as Calcium Ca2+) are attracted to these charges and are adsorbed onto the surface of the soil colloids as negative attracts positive. Adsorption is where they stick to the surface of the particle not go inside it (absorption)

Water between the soil colloids becomes charged (polarised) and acts as a link between the colloids, holding them together. The colloids are linked together by the polarised water and this is known as a floccule. The joining of the soil colloids (particles) in this way is called flocculation.

The floccule is essentially a chain of colloidal particles held together by water and the force of attraction between the water and the cations, as they are all charged one way or the other.

The floccules then trap larger particles such as sand and silt, forming aggregates. If you could imagine them forming a ring around a sand particle and holding it there, because sand has no charge so is not attracted to the water or soil colloids (clay) particles.

doctorg

rainbowtrout wrote: »

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055467114

Read all of this thread.

Hey
I read through the thread and found it very very Helpful. I have one Question regarding the experiments. The book I have is " Leaving Certificate Agricultural Science" by Hermann Geissel. And at the end of each chapter there are about 4-5 experiments But it doesn't state if all are mandatory. So will I write all the experiments out??

rainbowtrout

doctorg wrote: »

Hey
I read through the thread and found it very very Helpful. I have one Question regarding the experiments. The book I have is " Leaving Certificate Agricultural Science" by Hermann Geissel. And at the end of each chapter there are about 4-5 experiments But it doesn't state if all are mandatory. So will I write all the experiments out??

None of the experiments are mandatory, but you must have completed (and written up) experiments from each of the following six areas:

Soil
Animal Physiology (dissections)
Plant Physiology
Ecology
Genetics
Microbiology

so pick your experiments to suit those areas.

doctorg

ohh! Well I have a set of notes and they have around 40ish experiments in it.

If the exp. are not mandatory then how is it marked as it account for what 45 mark??
Also reading through that thread I found some people mention something called a Farm diary? What is then and is it part of the project? And how does one do it if they don't have a farming background.
Thanks

randylonghorn

rainbowtrout wrote: »

None of the experiments are mandatory, but you must have completed (and written up) experiments from each of the following six areas:

Soil
Animal Physiology (dissections)
Plant Physiology
Ecology
Genetics
Microbiology

so pick your experiments to suit those areas.

doctorg wrote: »

If the exp. are not mandatory then how is it marked as it account for what 45 mark??

I think RB meant that no one experiment or group of experiments MUST be done, rather you need to do experiments from each of the areas.

wayhey

Thanks so much for explaining the flocculation thing rainbowtrout

I'm doing up my project now and I'm just wondering is it enough to say "Oats" and identify the family as Avena? Like I don't need a specific, scientifically-named strain of oats (surely there's different varieties?) Just throwing it out to anyone out there

rainbowtrout

wayhey wrote: »

Thanks so much for explaining the flocculation thing rainbowtrout

I'm doing up my project now and I'm just wondering is it enough to say "Oats" and identify the family as Avena? Like I don't need a specific, scientifically-named strain of oats (surely there's different varieties?) Just throwing it out to anyone out there

No bother.

Avena sativa (Common Oat) is the Latin name for the oat plant. Avena fatua is the Wild Oat. The family they are from is Gramineae or the more modern name is Poaceae but Gramineae is the one that is widely used. You aren't expected to know the Latin names of the plants.

So it's fine to say Oats - Family Gramineae. If are doing Oats as part of the crop project it might be nice to distinguish between the two above as A. sativa is the crop and A. fatua is the weed.

wayhey

This family thing is a bit confusing! Our teacher chose Dandelion as one plant to do and it belongs to Compositae (according to the book) and Asterceae. I'm going to put down both, but in the exam situation which am I better off knowing? Compositae?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taraxacum

rainbowtrout

wayhey wrote: »

This family thing is a bit confusing! Our teacher chose Dandelion as one plant to do and it belongs to Compositae (according to the book) and Asterceae. I'm going to put down both, but in the exam situation which am I better off knowing? Compositae?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taraxacum

Again Compositae is the old name for the family, Asteraceae is the new name

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compositae

Doesn't matter which one it is.

In an exam you would be given the marks for either as both are correct.

It's much the same as Starburst or Opal Fruits!

wayhey

Slightly random, but do cattle eat daisies? Or buttercups?

http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/organicweeds/weed_information/weed.php?id=3

It's so hard to know what sites to trust!

rainbowtrout

wayhey wrote: »

Slightly random, but do cattle eat daisies? Or buttercups?

http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/organicweeds/weed_information/weed.php?id=3

It's so hard to know what sites to trust!

If there's nothing else to eat!

They will always go for the best quality grazing first, if you want to put something in about noxious weeds talk about ragwort and if you are looking for reliable sites perhaps start with Irish sites and start with www.teagasc.ie or www.agriculture.gov.ie

rainbowtrout

http://agscience.slss.ie/resources/c/1920/Ag%20Science%20Magazine%20Issue%201.pdf

This has been produced by the Irish Ag Science Teachers Association and the Second Level Support Services (for teachers). It outlines the project breakdown etc etc, some of you might find it useful

rainbowtrout

The Dept of Ed has finally got its arse in gear and started producing resources for Ag Science. It's still in its infancy and is aimed at teachers.... however if you go through the links on the menu you will find some stuff in there that will be of use to you, particularly under the link for Teaching Resources, powerpoints, exam questions grouped by topic etc etc...

http://agscience.slss.ie/

I wanted to get involved last year but my school wouldn't release me to do it.

rainbowtrout

fewtinsoffroth wrote: »

Hi, i'm considering Ag science, i'm also in fifth year. I'm sure i could find an ag science teacher to grade my project, but exactly how much supervision does the teacher have to do?

Well by grading you and signing off on your project they are confirming that the project is your own work, so really you would want to have done the experiments with them. They are supposed to be teaching you the subject - otherwise you could hand them a project which is A standard and they wouldn't know if it was your work or not because they hadn't taught you.

I get handed projects every now and again from my own students and they might be D students and hand in this amazing project which I know they copied/ didn't do by themselves

rainbowtrout

doctorg wrote: »

Hey I just have a quick question
Do the Experiments have to written up or can you just type them?
Thanks!

I've seen a couple of students type them, I don't think it's an issue. You should probably leave space to draw in your diagrams so it doesn't look like you copied it from the internet.

rainbowtrout

johnfarmer wrote: »

Hi all,
I'm interested in becoming an Agricultural Science teacher. DOes anybody know how to go about doing this? Any information provided would be great

You could do the Ag Science degree in UCD followed by the PGDE or you could do the BSc Science Education (I think it's official name on the CAO is BSc Biological Science with Teacher Education) where you would be qualified to teach Ag Science, Biology and Chemistry or Physics. Teacher training is part of the course.

You will need another subject with Ag Science. While numbers are rising doing the subject and qualified teachers in the subject are needed there are still only 6000 students doing it, so it is still a minority subject.

Aslo - there are little or no teaching jobs out there at the moment and it's going to get a whole lot worse in the next couple of years.

if you go into it, go in with your eyes open.

If you choose the UL degree, you will be qualified to teach, that is the point of the course. If you choose the UCD degree you could branch into other areas of agriculture other than teaching but you will still have to get into the PGDE

paperplane93

Just wondering if I have to include any information on milking parlours in the project? Only I cant seem to find anything on it in the big old brown book. I included lactation yields and drew a lactation curve but i'm not sure weather I need to know anything about milking parlours. .
Thanks

rainbowtrout

paperplane93 wrote: »

Just wondering if I have to include any information on milking parlours in the project? Only I cant seem to find anything on it in the big old brown book. I included lactation yields and drew a lactation curve but i'm not sure weather I need to know anything about milking parlours. .
Thanks

Well it depends on whether or not you are doing your project on dairy farm. The textbook isn't the only resource you can use to do research. You could visit a dairy farm.

paperplane93

Thanks for your reply rainbowtrout,
I'm doing dairy farming but didnt put anything about parlours. Our class visited 2 dairy farms last year but I don't remember much emphasis on the types of milking parlours. Sooo what I'm trying to say is: will I lose out on marks if I don't put anything in about them in the project? Can the examiner examine students on them even if there not in my project?
Thanks for your help

rainbowtrout

paperplane93 wrote: »

Thanks for your reply rainbowtrout,
I'm doing dairy farming but didnt put anything about parlours. Our class visited 2 dairy farms last year but I don't remember much emphasis on the types of milking parlours. Sooo what I'm trying to say is: will I lose out on marks if I don't put anything in about them in the project? Can the examiner examine students on them even if there not in my project?
Thanks for your help

Well I can't say if you will lose marks as it's your teacher that's grading it. I would be inclined to put something in about milking parlours (not necessarily the different types - rotational, herringbone etc) as they are an integral part of dairy farming. There's nothing to say that an examiner can't ask you about them, if you are being interviewed about a dairy project, I wouldn't consider it unfair to ask if you've ever been to a dairy farm and seen a milking parlour and take it from there depending on your response. The whole point of the project is that you are supposed to have had practical experience of it.

rainbowtrout

mulner92 wrote: »

I did the exam last year, it was hard but i got on fine thankfully. Never liked the biological things, just the farming bits. Rainbowtrout, do you know what a burdizzo is? it was asked on the 2010 paper. I didn't know and i come from an agricultural background and my dad was unsure too, though he has been a farmer all his life

It's a tool used to castrate bulls. I bet your dad calls it the squeezer or something similar

Dave_Kilkenny

rainbowtrout wrote: »

It's a tool used to castrate bulls. I bet your dad calls it the squeezer or something similar

Our teacher noted to us that there was some controversy over that question as a Burdizzo is simply a popular brand name.

rainbowtrout

Kitten88 wrote: »

Just a quick question Ive taken I look through the thread and couldnt spot the answer I was looking for but it might be there so apologise if Im asking a repeat question. With regard the exam paper and answering 6 questions out of a possible 10 (including the two options given for question 3) are any of them compulsory or is it completely random and does anyone have any advice on which ones to try and avoid and which are the best for picking up marks???

None are compulsory but Q1 is worth 60 marks and all other questions are worth 48

60 + (5 x 48) = 300. But you can choose to do any 6 questions, so you could leave out Q1 and do another 48 mark question instead, but you would be dropping 12 marks automatically as you are still marked out of 300. On average I correct 400 papers every year and if I see even 1 paper that doesn't have question 1 attempted, I'd say that's about the most. Almost everyone does it.

Q2 is always a full question on soil, Q4 is always 4 experiments to do 2, so there's a good choice within it, Q7 is always genetics, and Q9 is always scientific explanations with 5 statements to explain 4, however anything can come up in this question.


You cannot answer both options from Q3 and you cannot pick and choose parts from each option eg. You cannot do parts A and B from Option 1 and part C from Option 2. If you choose to do both options for Q3 both will be marked and you will be given the higher mark of the two.

There are a few students who answer both as part of their 6 questions every year and as a result only end up with the marks for 5 questions. Be careful.

RovinPirate

Rainbow trout, i would like to ask a question about my Ag science project!
I am repeating this year and doing Ag science in a year, i did very well in biology and its really helping with a lot of the course

Question is, Is chicken (Laying commercial) acceptable as livestock?
Our teacher makes us do two livestock, and ive already done dairy and poultry (nearly 30 pages in dairy its ridiculous!) but my teacher has turned around and said poultry might not be accepted and she wants me to do sheep/pigs or beef as well!! I put an awful lot of work into my poultry section, its alot harder to do than a dairy section!! The farm i visited has both Dairy and Egg production. Basically i just want to know is the hours i spent on poultry gone to waste?

(My Ag. teacher is new to the course and isnt sure about a few things)

rainbowtrout

RovinPirate wrote: »

Rainbow trout, i would like to ask a question about my Ag science project!
I am repeating this year and doing Ag science in a year, i did very well in biology and its really helping with a lot of the course

Question is, Is chicken (Laying commercial) acceptable as livestock?
Our teacher makes us do two livestock, and ive already done dairy and poultry (nearly 30 pages in dairy its ridiculous!) but my teacher has turned around and said poultry might not be accepted and she wants me to do sheep/pigs or beef as well!! I put an awful lot of work into my poultry section, its alot harder to do than a dairy section!! The farm i visited has both Dairy and Egg production. Basically i just want to know is the hours i spent on poultry gone to waste?

(My Ag. teacher is new to the course and isnt sure about a few things)

Yes poultry is perfectly fine. No problem there at all. You only need one livestock project so you're well covered having two done.

Make sure you have 2 crop projects from grass/potatoes/cereal though. That's where most people get caught out.

dean27

Hi rainbowtrout ,

Basically after reading some of your posts im starting to worry that my teacher may be incompetent. I am doing my Leaving cert this year , I am one of the only students in the class opting to take Ag science in honours due to the difficulty of the paper and the general crowd of my class being wasters.

I am not worried about the notes of the course , her notes seem to be fine , to me atleast (although i bought hermann giessel's book , which to be perfectly honest i find fairly untidy and non student friendly).
My main point of concern is what i have read about the project write ups.

To date i have completed around 8 experiments , written them up and are in my teachers possesion as is a page i wrote up on ringworm in cattle (The remainder of the class did a page on their assigned topic). I am currently doing my "farm write up". I read some things on here where students have gone to a farm on different occasions on a weekly , monthly basis or whatever it may be. All we done was visit a small time dairy farm here in Donegal , asked general questions about the farm I.e acreage , no of cattle , info on milking sheds + parlour and housing so on so forth.
We have logged this data on a sheet and are now expected to write it up in essay form i believe. Is this the correct format and even project we are doing?

Also i see people mentioning about projects on livestock or a crop etc , to date i have heard nothing about this , is this a fundemental part of the project?

Sorry for so many questions and i would really appreciate it if you would take some time out of what im sure is a busy schedule to answer these questions. Thanks.

rainbowtrout

dean27 wrote: »

Hi rainbowtrout ,

Basically after reading some of your posts im starting to worry that my teacher may be incompetent. I am doing my Leaving cert this year , I am one of the only students in the class opting to take Ag science in honours due to the difficulty of the paper and the general crowd of my class being wasters.

I am not worried about the notes of the course , her notes seem to be fine , to me atleast (although i bought hermann giessel's book , which to be perfectly honest i find fairly untidy and non student friendly).
My main point of concern is what i have read about the project write ups.

To date i have completed around 8 experiments , written them up and are in my teachers possesion as is a page i wrote up on ringworm in cattle (The remainder of the class did a page on their assigned topic). I am currently doing my "farm write up". I read some things on here where students have gone to a farm on different occasions on a weekly , monthly basis or whatever it may be. All we done was visit a small time dairy farm here in Donegal , asked general questions about the farm I.e acreage , no of cattle , info on milking sheds + parlour and housing so on so forth.
We have logged this data on a sheet and are now expected to write it up in essay form i believe. Is this the correct format and even project we are doing?

Also i see people mentioning about projects on livestock or a crop etc , to date i have heard nothing about this , is this a fundemental part of the project?

Sorry for so many questions and i would really appreciate it if you would take some time out of what im sure is a busy schedule to answer these questions. Thanks.

Visiting a small farm is fine. It's the write up that matters. I would say you would need more than a page though. Is the subject new to your school? I've examined in Donegal before and all the schools up there were usually pretty on the ball with project work.

I would say aim for about 15 pages - before there is a flood of posts going 'is that the minimum/maximum I should write/I only have 5 pages/ I have 95 pages etc etc etc' I'm suggesting this as something reasonable and see how you get on from there.

Start with a couple of pictures of the breeds of cattle you saw on the farm. Let's say the farmer had Friesians, Holsteins and Jerseys for arguments sake. Go and get some pictures of these breeds. Stick them on a page and do some research on each breed and write it up beside each photo.

http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/

This is quite a good website to get started in terms of breed info.

Then you mentioned milking parlour and housing. Get some pictures of milking parlours, eg herringbone or rotary, again write up some information on each of these. You can then comment on whatever set up the farmer had on his farm.

Cattle are usually housed in the winter, so maybe you could take some photos of slatted sheds and talk about them and you could also talk about when the herd goes in for the winter, dosing them before going in to prevent disease.

Talk about the feed they are given indoors - dairy nuts, silage, hay, get some photos of each or if you can get a small sample of any of the them (nuts in particular) put them in a small plastic ziplock bag and tape it into your project. Visit the local co-op, you might get some stuff there.

Farmer probably has calves. Talk about calving, what happens during calving, use of calving jacks etc. Talk about how to care for calves after they're born - feeding colostrum , dipping navel in iodine etc.

Grazing methods used on the farm - paddock, strip, block.

Disease control - mention the different diseases that cattle can get and how they can be prevented. You can get photos of cattle with diseases, you can also cut ads from the farmers journal or get info at your local teagasc office on commercial products used to treat illness and disease e.g. Ivomec pour on etc . Put pics of these in your project.

That should give you loads to write about.

Rather than me writing an essay about the rest of the project, take some time and read through this thread from the start. I've outlined what needs to be done in great detail in a lot of the earlier posts and that should help you put the project together.

What I will say is that you need to have done projects on two crops as well : two from 1. Grass/2.Potatoes or another root crop/3. Cereals

PM if you want to know anything more specific.

ritak10

Hi
My son is hoping to start ag science next week He is in 5th year. Hopefully he will be able to catch up.
He will have access to a farm that has crops and horses. Will that be ok?
Its so refreshing to see a teacher giving so much of their time to help.Well done Rainbowtrout!

rainbowtrout

ritak10 wrote: »

Hi
My son is hoping to start ag science next week He is in 5th year. Hopefully he will be able to catch up.
He will have access to a farm that has crops and horses. Will that be ok?
Its so refreshing to see a teacher giving so much of their time to help.Well done Rainbowtrout!

Hi Rita,

Yes he should have plenty of time. Will he be in a class at school or is he taking it with a teacher outside school? That farm sounds perfect. I would suggest that you encourage him to visit there on a regular basis, once a month is plenty and take photos of what is going on. Perhaps if land is being ploughed, crops being sown, fertilized, harvested during the year, cutting grass for silage or hay, and if they have any foals on the farm he could take photos if he chooses to do his animal project on horses of course.

Also perhaps start buying him the farmer's journal. It's out every Thursday and there are a lot of useful articles in it. This weeks is particularly good for grass and grazing. Also during the school year there is a two page supplement each week on a topic on the leaving cert ag science course which he might find useful.

rainbowtrout

Henrib wrote: »

Firstly huge thanks to rainbow trout, I printed off the first part of this thread and used it as a helpful project guideline. So all done now and just getting the project together and pics stuck in, I have written up about 10 experiments so far which according to this thread seems sufficient however our teacher is insisting on 30! Anyone heard of this? Is 30 not excessive?

You're welcome. You have to have experiments on each of the 6 sections I outlined earlier in the thread.

Also because Q4 on the exam is four experiments to do two, it's good revision. I normally get my class to do about 30 experiments over the two years. It's not excessive.