Second-graders can now believe it’s butter

By Stuart Hedstrom 
Staff Writer

    DOVER-FOXCROFT — Once again the annual GrowMe collaboration, a partnership between the Valley Grange, Piscataquis County Soil and Water Conservation District and Piscataquis County branch of the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, brought a taste of Maine agriculture to nearly 50 classrooms and about 750 grade K-3 students across the region.

Observer photos/Stuart Hedstrom

    SHAKEN, NOT STIRRED — As part of the GrowMe collaboration, which brings agriculture into K-3 classrooms in the region’s five school districts, students in David Murray’s grade 2 class at SeDoMoCha Elementary in Dover-Foxcroft made their own butter. Taking turns shaking the butter jar are, above from left, Anastasia Curtis, Carter Coy and Joshua Harrington. Bottom right, from left, are Emilee Shaw, Brian Wilcox and Gabriel Carey.

    The various GrowMe grade-level activities are intended to increase agricultural literacy among participants, and on the morning of March 25 David Murray’s second grade class at SeDoMoCha Elementary got to make and then sample homemade butter.
    “So today we are going to talk a little bit about agriculture,” said GrowMe volunteer Hannah Yovino of the Cooperative Extension and FoodCorps, who was joined by Kasie Weber of the soil and water conservation district. Yovino then asked how many of the second-graders know the definition of agriculture, and a few students then said they live on farmland.
    “Do you guys know what you can make from a dairy cow?,” she asked, with responses including cheese, butter, milk and ice cream. “Today we are going to make butter.”
    Yovino said, “You guys can take milk from a cow and let it sit out, and let the cream rise to the top.” She then said the class would not only be making butter, but the students would have the opportunity to try the spread on crackers when they were finished.
    Sitting in a circle on a class rug, the students were given a jar of a substance that resembled milk but was actually a heavier cream. Each pupil held the jar and gave it 10 shakes before passing the container to their neighbor. After one round, each student gave the jar five more shakes apiece to turn the cream into butter.
    “So you guys have butter in here, what else do you have in here,” Yovino asked about the buttermilk. “So before we taste the butter we have to get rid of the milk in here.”
    With the milk removed, Weber said, “I think it’s time now to try the butter that we made.” The students went back to their desks, where, if they wanted, they were given a cracker and then some fresh butter. When asked how the spread tastes, the reactions included “good” in unison and a number of thumbs up.
    “The cream that we made from butter comes from cows and I want to check your cow knowledge now,” Weber said. She then explained how the average dairy cow weighs about 1,000 pounds, well over 10 times the weight of many of the students, and this animal produces about 25 pounds of milk from its udders.
    Weber asked how many pounds of food a cow eats daily, and after some low guesses she said this figure is about 90 to 95 pounds — a weight greater than that of all of the students. “They have to eat that amount of food to get that much milk,” she said.