The Lessons Are Available At No Cost to Teachers Who Sign Up for the Discover Dairy Program

Discover Dairy, a multi-level lesson series, has several free dairy-focused lessons available for teachers and students in a variety of learning environments, including traditional classrooms and home school settings. A new Animal Health lesson, focused on helping students explore the career of dairy farming and how farmers care for their cows, was recently published for the following grade levels: kindergarten to second grade, third to fifth grade, and sixth to eighth grade. There are four other dairy lessons available at no cost on the Discover Dairy website, with additional lessons expected to be released in the fall of 2024.

Managed by the Dairy Excellence Foundation of Pennsylvania and its partners, Discover Dairy is an interactive cross-curricular, multi-level lesson series that meets Pennsylvania state education standards and anchors for science, math and reading. The program also incorporates social studies concepts to show students where milk comes from and how dairy farms contribute to our world. The lessons include video motivators, reading guides, lab resources, assessment-based worksheets, and more.

“Discover Dairy was created to bring the dairy farm into the classroom. These lessons are not only informative, but we’ve worked hard to make them interactive and engaging for students at all grade levels. With a variety of hands-on labs and activities, students begin to understand all the ways that dairy farming connects to their communities and the foods they consume on a daily basis,” said Brittany Snyder, Dairy Education Program Manager at the Dairy Excellence Foundation. “We’re excited to launch the new Animal Health lessons this spring and release additional lessons in the fall to share the world of dairy farming with even more classrooms.”

The following lessons are available to teachers on the Discover Dairy website:

• Animal Health – Students learn about the career of dairy farming and how dairy farmers care for their cows to ensure they are healthy and comfortable.
• Milk Quality & Safety – Students will learn the steps that milk goes through from the farm to the grocery store to ensure safe and high-quality dairy products.
• Dairy In Our Environment – Students will learn about the importance of connecting the farmer, the consumer and the environment. They will understand the roles dairy farmers fill in protecting the environment such as recycling.
• Dairy In Our Community – Students will learn how dairy farms contribute and impact consumers, retailers, and communities. They will also discover how milk and farm products come from healthy, natural resources.
• Dairy and Good Nutrition – Students will learn how choices affect their diet, health and nutrition. They will then explore the number of servings needed from each food group in the “MyPlate” Food Guidelines.

“I try to keep dairy in our units because there’s a lot of other science I have to cover in social studies. We can get all the standards in with dairy. I started with lesson one in Discover Dairy. We’ve learned about the chemical components of milk, that farmers don’t put antibiotics in milk, and how they take care of their cows,” said Julie Cates, a sixth-grade teacher in California. “We did an activity making butter, because we learn about homogenization and pasteurization [in the lessons]. We can bring in other sciences to supplement everything. This year was very exciting because none of my sixth-graders had ever made butter using cream. The butter-making activity is really fun because it’s so hands-on and it’s simple, too.”

Teachers can sign up for a free Discover Dairy account and have access to all lessons and activities at no cost. There are additional classroom enrichment activities offered on the platform, including dairy books, games, videos, posters, activities, virtual farm tours, and more. Discover Dairy teachers also have access to farm tour field trip grant opportunities every school year. The Adopt a Cow Program, which impacts more than one million students worldwide each school year, is a flagship component of the Discover Dairy program and another interactive learning opportunity for students.

“The Discover Dairy lessons have been really easy to follow along with. The first one was as simple as opening up the video and using the conversation questions. I appreciate that the prep work is quick, whether I’m planning three weeks in advance or the night before. I like that it’s quick to put together,” said Becky Norton, a home school teacher in Georgia. “My kids are very close in age, but for a home school family that has multiple grade levels, it would be very easy to adapt to a greater age span. In a classroom setting, teachers could pick out age-appropriate activities and do a lot of cross-curricular activities. You can pull in agriculture, math and language arts, too.”

Visit www.discoverdairy.com to create a teacher account, access the free lessons, and view the wide range of activities. To learn more about the program and how you can share it with teachers in your community, contact Brittany Snyder at bsnyder@centerfordairyexcellence.org or call 717-788-0297.

Discover Dairy is an educational series managed by the Center for Dairy Excellence Foundation of Pennsylvania in partnership with American Dairy Association Northeast, American Dairy Association Indiana, Midwest Dairy, The Dairy Alliance, Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin, Dairy Council of Arizona and Nevada, Dairy West, New England Dairy, Dairy Farmers of Washington, American Dairy Association Mideast, Dairy Council of Florida, United Dairy Industry of Michigan, Maine Dairy and Nutrition Council, and Oregon Dairy and Nutrition Council.