Agriculture/Dairy after school Cluster

Agriculture/Dairy after school Cluster

 

Six students in 3rd and 4th grade had the opportunity to be part of the first Agriculture/Dairy after school Cluster, put on the by the Onondaga County Dairy Promotions Team. Students met each week with 2nd Alternate NYS Dairy Princess, Zoie Skinner, a junior at FP, and several local Dairy Ambassadors (Cassandra Wilbur, Maddy Haaf, Isabella Esposito, Sasha Lelakowski, Isabella Loomis & Ruth Siau).

The students learned to identify dairy products and then learned about the 9 essential nutrients in milk and what they do for their body. They also got to see pictures of the red & white Holstein calf that they adopted and learned about her growth each week. (They named her Fireball!)

The next week the students went to the gym and learned about the Fuel Up to Play 60 partnership with the NFL and learned the importance of eating healthy and being active for 60 minutes every day. Colin Kovalewski, a junior at FP that was involved in a FUTP60 program at the Pittsburgh Steelers last fall, came and taught them some football drills and exercises and then everyone refueled their bodies with chocolate milk!

The kids were very excited to learn about how the farmer takes care of their cows, the milking process, how the milk it tested and how it gets safely from the cow to school for you to drink!  Then the group poured heavy cream into small containers and shook them until they made their own butter!

Lastly the students learned about a cow’s diet. They learned that cows drink 30-50 gallons of water (that’s a bathtub full!) and eat about 100 lbs of feed every day. They even learned what goes into the cows feed and made their own snack mix based on what they cows eat.

On May 5th, the students that participated in the cluster were invited, along with their families to Venture Farms. They started the day by showing their parents all of the information that they had learned in cluster and then set out for a tour with farmer Joel Riehlman. The kids were very excited to meet Fireball and get their picture taken with her. Farmer Joel taught them about how the cows are taken care of and they visited the newborn calves. They also went to the milking parlor so they could see the milking process and visited the food bins to see some of the cow feed ingredients (and a few of the kids might have tasted them as well!).