On this month’s edition of “Conversations with Dairy Checkoff,” we’re joined by Amiee Vondrasek, health and wellness manager with United Dairy Industry of Michigan (UDIM).
MAT: Amiee, UDIM recently hosted middle and high school science educators for an immersive experience to learn the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM, components of dairy along with the next generation science standards. Can you tell me a bit more about On the Farm STEM immersive professional development experiences?
Amiee: Sure. The On the Farm STEM professional development brought an immersive experience to the science teachers for four days. We had 22 teachers, and they got to see all parts of the dairy industry. They visited three dairy farms, a cheese and whey plant. They also visited an agronomy farm and a fueling station, which is sports nutrition at Michigan State University. So they saw all aspects of the dairy farm, you know, from the soil, where we’re growing the crops, to the science behind feeding the cows, to caring for the cows, all the way to processing the milk and getting that milk on the tables and at schools.
Amiee, why did UDIM and Michigan dairy farmers host this pilot project?
As teachers and classrooms focus on STEM, we want to make sure that dairy is a part of those lessons, and that starts with teaching those teachers about dairy farming. So we can do that by bringing them to the farm and showing them all the different ways that farmers are using science, the technology, the engineering, and math every day.
Can you share some of the highlights from the event?
Absolutely. There were a lot of highlights throughout the week, a lot of great conversations between the teachers and then between teachers and farmers.
One really great story is when we were at MSU, we had a professor talking about the two-year and four-year programs that are available for the students. We had a teacher that wants to go to school. She wants to go back to school and check out these programs. So that was pretty exciting, and when we were at the agronomy farm, they could make that connection of how important it is to keep the soil healthy.
And that will affect the feed, which then affects the milk production. They also learned about milk quality and safety. So, being on different farms, they were able to see that no matter what size the farm is or how they collect the milk, that there’s protocols in place to make sure that milk is always safe and it’s always wholesome.
Now, we took this time, we gave the teachers this knowledge; what’s the hope of what they do with it?
We want these teachers to take what they learn, take it back to their classrooms, incorporate it into their lessons, lessons about dairy nutrition. They learned how to make cheese, you do that in a chemistry class.
They, of course, were given UDIM resources that can support them. They can have handouts for the students but then can also support their lessons.
For more information about On The Farm STEM, as well as additional resources and activities, visit onthefarmstem.com or milkmeansmore.org.
Thanks to Amiee Vondrasek, health and wellness manager with United Dairy Industry of Michigan, for talking with us in this edition of “Conversations with Dairy Checkoff.” Hear the story in the media players below, and learn more about UDIM at milkmeansmore.org.
