The finals of Animal Idol will be held on the Wagga Wagga Campus of Charles Sturt University (CSU) tomorrow. The brainchild of Professor Martin Sillence in the CSU Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences School and course coordinator of the new Bachelor of Animal Science, Animal Idol has first year Animal Science students compete in an Australian Idol-style competition. “It is designed to improve presentation skills,” said Dr Sillence. “Each week a different topic is researched and I set a distinct theme and context. Once students gave a presentation aimed at school children, another was an ‘unplugged’ presentation with no power point or other electronic devices. There is a panel of judges drawn from CSU - perhaps one is a little bit ‘Marcia’, and two are a little bit ‘Dicko’. The students vote by SMS to eliminate one of the presentation teams. It is novel, but it seems to be working. I have been amazed by the standard of presentations and the way the students have improved from week to week.”