Minnesota dairy farmer and cheesemaker, Alise Sjostrom, is featured in Discovery Education, a program designed to bring dairy farming into classrooms across the nation. Sjostrom is part of a “Farmer Spotlight” lesson plan during which students learn more about her family’s sustainability practices on the dairy farm, their commitment to animal care and how her passion for cheese-making led to her running the farm’s onsite creamery, Redhead Creamery.
Dairy farm tours and dairy farmer interaction provide valuable opportunities to help students understand more about where dairy foods come from. Since it’s not always feasible to coordinate classroom field trips to the farm, online education programs make it possible to bring the farm to the classroom.
Discovery Education has been proven to increase positive perceptions of dairy farmers by introducing students to farming via virtual tours, with kids showing an interest in technology, sustainability and milk’s journey from farm to table.
The lesson plan featuring Sjostrom aligns dairy with STEM curriculum, which is based on the idea of educating students in four specific disciplines: science, technology, engineering and mathematics. It also includes short 60-90 second videos to bring dairy to life.