Pupils at St Albans Meadows Primary School are milking this life-size blank canvas for all it’s worth.
Pupils across all year levels will be whipping out their art smocks and mixing their colour palettes over the next 12 weeks to transform the fibre-glass cow into a piece of dairy-related artwork as part of Dairy Australia’s annual Picasso Cows program.
St Albans Meadows is one of 10 schools across the state given the challenge to decorate a life-size, fibre-glass cow under one of three themes: ‘Unbeatable Bones’, ‘Fuel for Life’, or ‘Farm to Plate’.
Schools must also submit a learning journal that details what they have learnt about the dairy industry, including the health and nutritional benefits of dairy foods such as milk, cheese and yoghurt.
Dairy Australia project manager Emily Barnes said the program was designed to help schools explore the “grass to glass” process in a fun and creative way.
“It’s surprising the number of kids who have no idea how milk gets from the cow to the supermarket or think that yoghurt actually grows on trees,” Ms Barnes said.
St Albans Meadows visual arts teacher Erica Lacorcia said the school, which would decorate its cow under the theme Fuel for Life, was still deciding on a name for the cow and the design it would use.
“It’s a very exciting and fun project for the whole school,” Ms Lacorcia said.
