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See the video from the tour!

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Aldo Leopold Students Tour Stoner Prairie Dairy Farm - Dane County Farm Bureau

Do You Know an Outstanding Volunteer or Volunteering Program?
If you know of people or organizations that have made exceptional volunteering efforts to educate about agriculture, the Foundation wants to hear about it. Nominate them at www.agfoundation.org, under What We Support-Volunteers.

 

Wisconsin Volunteer Alison Kepner Shows Bilingual Students where Dairy Comes From 

 

logoThe Foundation would like to recognize Alison Kepner of Wisconsin for her outstanding efforts to educate about agriculture.

 

Alison Kepner is a mover and a shaker in Dane County Farm Bureau. Currently she serves as the Dane County Farm Bureau Ag in the Classroom coordinator. Alison organized a series of educational opportunities after a controversial online article was published that targeted Aldo Leopold Elementary School. An excerpt from this controversial article said: "Children come into the world as blank slates. They learn what is right and what is wrong by watching their parents and most of the world around them. Sadly, most of these lessons teach them that animals are for us to eat, torment and use as we choose."  

 

In response to this article Alison coordinated a "Meet a Farmer" classroom visit. Then, to reinforce what was taught in the classroom, Alison organized a follow-up activity with a visit to Stoner Prairie Dairy in Fitchburg, WI.

 

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The goal of the classroom visit was to educate the students, teachers, and hopefully parents about a working dairy farm. The elementary school that was targeted in the article is a dual immersion school, which means students are taught literacy and academic content in both English and Spanish. The follow-up visit to a working dairy farm was an added bonus that really helped the students understand more about the dairy industry. Bilingual Farm Bureau volunteers as well as the teachers were on hand to help translate unknown words and farm concepts. This activity relates to the overall goals of Dane and the Wisconsin Farm Bureau organizations simply because they are promoting how important dairy farms are to our industry.  The desired outcome was to see the students excited about learning more about agriculture and the dairy industry.  

 

After a successful classroom visit, leaving the students excited to learn more about dairy farms, a follow-up visit to a local dairy farm was scheduled. 40 fourth and fifth grade bilingual students arrived at Stoner Prairie Dairy for a two-hour dairy farm tour. The tour consisted of: a farm tour via tractor and wagon, an interactive classroom lesson, a "Snacking Around Wisconsin" demonstration, bottle feeding calves and four lucky students got to milk a cow by hand! The students left the farm with a goodie bag full of educational materials about the dairy industry and the food production it fosters.

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The dairy farm tour was offered in both English and Spanish because they wanted to support the dual immersion curriculum offered at Aldo Leopold Elementary School. Many of the students were familiar with farming practices in Mexico but they wanted to expand their knowledge to include a working Wisconsin dairy farm.   

 

The Foundation thanks Alison for her hard work organizing this great event to educate students about agriculture! Also thanks to the folks at Stoner Prairie Dairy for inviting the students!  

 

 

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