Students from Booleroo Centre Disctrict School got a hands-on lesson in grain sampling yesterday at the Viterra/ABB Port Pirie terminal.

The excursion wrapped up a 10 week course and gave the students the opportunity to get out of the classroom and run grain sampling tests under supervision of professionals.

The school is the first to be part of the program, which was developed between agriculture teacher Andrew Geddes and Viterra staff Jeff Blackwell and Michael Fogarty.

“This is the first crop of kids to go through the program,” Mr Geddes said.

Although a similar program has been running from that original meeting, Mr Geddes said it wasn’t until this year that he became confident in its potential success.

He said the company had provided DVDs and manuals to assist learning, and most importantly set dates for students to visit grain terminals, including the one in Port Pirie and two in Port Adelaide.

Five of the Year 11 students have also undergone medicals and inductions to work for the company during harvest when it starts.

Student Luke Nottle has already got a job on the harvest, which he started last year. He is excited about the prospects it has given him.

“I’ve really enjoyed it, and it’s been good to learn over a long period taking it slow so everything sinks in,” he said.

Fellow student Breanne Boege would prefer the hairdressing industry, but said she would like to make the most of the opportunity.

“It would look good on the resume,” she said.

“Hopefully it will show that we’re willing to learn.”

Breanne and Luke are both happy with the hands-on aspect of the course, and look to saving some money by putting their new-found knowledge to practical use.

Mr Geddes sees the benefit not only in delivering a course “the students can use,” he said, but would provide those who are looking to go to university employment during holidays.

Luke is hoping to have work in Melrose for six weeks during the break.

Mr Geddes said the program is also good for the company, who can train students who could then work in the industry.

“It would be ideal for this to go into every school,” he said.

And Mr Geddes hopes that the course will expand to other schools, and that within his own school more students will take part in the future.

“Hopefully after this year we’ll get students intensely interested in this subject,” he said.