Students explore the numerous career opportunities involved in the dairy industry and solve real world math problems related to specific careers within the industry. Grades 3-5
One or more photos showing the inside of a milk barn
Feed Samples (optional)
Syringe with needle removed
Digital Scale
Gallon of milk
Vocabulary
accountant: a professional who keeps records of business-related financial transactions
dairy farmer: a farmer who specializes in raising dairy cattle, specifically for milk and/or cheese products
dairy nutritionist: an animal health professional who specializes in the nutritional needs of dairy cows; nutritionists recommend the best diets for cows and monitor how cows respond to their feeding program
marketing manager: advertises, promotes, and sells products to distributors, processing plants, and eventually, to the public
safety inspector: helps prevent harm to workers, property, the environment and the general public; makes sure the dairy products we consume are safe and healthy to eat; also makes sure the food we eat is free from germs and stored at the correct temperature
veterinarian: a doctor who treats animals
Background Agricultural Connections
This lesson is part of a series called, Milk Matters: Discovering Dairy. These lessons introduce students to the history, production, nutritional value and economic significance of the dairy industry. Other related lessons include:
Dairy careers require a variety of skills, including skills in science, technology, reading, writing and mathematics. This lesson features real-life math challenges that individuals working in the dairy industry face everyday. Students will make important connections between the math problems completed in school and the math skills essential to employment. Students will study the career fields of a safety inspector, marketing manager, accountant, veterinarian, and dairy nutritionist.
More background information on the dairy industry can be found here.
Engage
Draw! Give students markers and a large white sheet of paper, and three minutes to brainstorm dairy-related careers. Working in groups, students draw as many images as possible representing careers found on a dairy.
Encourage students to share their drawings with the entire class. Create a master list of careers on the board and brainstorm important skills these individuals need to be successful with their jobs.
Discuss and emphasize how math skills are essential for all jobs, including work on a dairy.
Explore and Explain
For this lesson, groups of students (determined by the teacher) will rotate between six different learning stations. Each station should be set up with one table and chairs for each student in the group. Each station will focus on a different dairy career. Students will move around the room, completing math challenges found in each student’s Milk Makin’ MathActivity Book. Set up each of the stations as follows:
Station 1: Dairy Nutritionist
Visual: Samples of hay, dairy feed components. With each sample, include a label and definition
Station 2: Dairy Farmer
Visual: One or more photos showing the inside of a milking barn.
Station 3: Veterinarian
Visual: A syringe with the needle removed.
Station 4: Accountant
Visual: A checkbook to represent expenses and a dollar to represent profit. Using index cards, define and label each as profit or expense.
Station 5: Safety Inspector
Visual: A large weather thermometer that shows temperature in degrees Fahrenheit.
Station 6: Marketing Manager
Visual: Place one gallon of milk on a digital scale.
Instruct students who complete stations early to illustrate the cover of their activity book.
Review the answers to the problems with the entire class. Conclude the lesson with a class discussion on:
What are your impressions on the amount of math needed to be successful in your career?
Which career would you enjoy most? Why?
Which job is the most difficult? Why?
Which job is the easiest? Why?
On an index card, students write down one fact they learned about one of the possible dairy careers. Students will use this “ticket” to be excused for lunch, recess or a nutrition break.
Variations:
Students move around the stations in pairs. Students complete each math challenge together.
Students create a dairy “passport.” With each completed station, they receive a stamp to show their success.
Students complete a KWL chart to begin the lesson.
Elaborate
Visit the Interactive Map Project website and view the Dairy Cattle Inventory map. As a class identify the highest milk producing states and discuss the factors which could contribute to the success of dairy farms such as climate, open space, etc. Identify where your state ranks in dairy cattle production and discuss the factors contributing to the statistic.
Invite individuals representing dairy careers to sit on a panel for the class. Students have the opportunity to learn about each of the careers by asking questions of each guest speaker.
Invite individuals from each dairy career to monitor activity stations.
Students work in groups to research each dairy career. This activity may include interviewing employees in the industry, researching online or role-playing job responsibilities.
Acknowledgements
This lesson was funded in 2008 by the California Milk Advisory Board and the California Farm Bureau Federation. To meet the needs of California educators, Milk Matters: Discovering Dairy was created to meet the Curriculum Content Standards for California Public Schools. The unit also includes a collection of relevant resources about the dairy industry.
Executive Director: Judy Culbertson
Layout and Design: Imelda Muziom
California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom
We welcome your feedback! If you have a question about this lesson or would like to report a broken link, please send us an email. If you have used this lesson and are willing to share your experience, we will provide you with a coupon code for 10% off your next purchase at AgClassroomStore.
State Standards for Indiana
Social Studies. Grade 3: Economics: Standard 4
Students explain how people in the local community make choices about using goods, services and productive
resources; how they engage in trade to satisfy their economic wants and needs; how they use a variety of sources to gather and
apply information about economic changes in the community; and how they compare costs and benefits in economic decision
making.
3.4.2 Economics - Give examples of goods and services provided by local business and industry.
English Language Arts.Grade 3.RV.1
Build and use accurately conversational, general academic, and content-specific words and phrases.
Vocabulary in Literature and Nonfiction Texts.3.RV.3.2 - Determine the meanings of general academic and content-specific words and phrases in a nonfiction text relevant to a third grade topic or subject area.
English Language Arts.Grade 3.SL.1
Listen actively and adjust the use of spoken language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
Discussion and Collaboration.3.SL.2.1 - Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) on grade- appropriate topics and texts, building on others ideas and expressing personal ideas clearly.
Discussion and Collaboration.3.SL.2.2 - Explore ideas under discussion by drawing on readings and other information.
English Language Arts.Grade 4.RV.1
Build and use accurately general academic and content-specific words and phrases.
Vocabulary in Literature and Nonfiction Texts.4.RV.3.2 - Determine the meanings of general academic and content-specific words and phrases in a nonfiction text relevant to a fourth grade topic or subject area.
English Language Arts.Grade 4.SL.1
Listen actively and adjust the use of spoken language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
Discussion and Collaboration.4.SL.2.1 - Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) on grade- appropriate topics and texts, building on others ideas and expressing personal ideas clearly.
Discussion and Collaboration.4.SL.2.2 - Explore ideas under discussion by drawing on readings and other information.
English Language Arts.Grade 5.RV.1
Build and use accurately general academic and content-specific words and phrases.
Vocabulary in Literature and Nonfiction Texts.5.RV.3.2 - Determine the meaning of general academic and content-specific words and phrases in a nonfiction text relevant to a fifth grade topic or text.
English Language Arts.Grade 5.SL.1
Listen actively and adjust the use of spoken language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
Discussion and Collaboration.5.SL.2.1 - Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) on grade- appropriate topics and texts, building on others ideas and expressing personal ideas clearly.
Discussion and Collaboration.5.SL.2.2 - Reflect on and contribute to ideas under discussion by drawing on readings and other resources.
Agricultural Literacy Outcomes
Culture, Society, Economy & Geography
Explain the value of agriculture and how it is important in daily life. (T5.3-5.d)
Food, Health, and Lifestyle
Identify careers in food, nutrition, and health (T3.3-5.f)
Education Content Standards
Social Studies – Economics (ECONOMICS)
Economics Standard 7 (Grades 3-5)Market and Prices
Objective (Grades 3-5) Identify markets in which they have participated as a buyer and as a seller and describe how the interaction of all buyers and sellers influences prices. Also, predict how prices change when there is either a shortage or surplus of the product available.
Science (SCIENCE)
4-LS1:From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes
4-LS1-1 Construct an argument that plants and animals have internal and external structures that function to support survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction.
4-LS1-2 Use a model to describe that animals receive different types of information through their senses, process the information in their brain, and respond to the information in different ways.
5-ESS3:Earth and Human Activity
5-ESS3-1 Obtain and combine information about ways individual communities use science ideas to protect the Earth's resources and environment.
5-PS3:Energy
5-PS3-1 Use models to describe that energy in animals' food (used for body repair, growth, and motion and to maintain body warmth) was once energy from the sun.
Common Core Connections
Anchor Standards: Language
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.L.4Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases by using context clues, analyzing meaningful word parts, and consulting general and specialized reference materials, as appropriate.
Anchor Standards: Reading
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.4Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.
Anchor Standards: Speaking and Listening
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.1Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
Anchor Standards: Writing
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.10Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.
Practice Standards: Mathematics
CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP1Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. Students start by explaining to themselves the meaning of a problem and looking for entry points to its solution. They analyze givens, constraints, relationships, and goals. They make conjectures about the form and meaning of the solution and plan a solution pathway rather than simply jumping into a solution attempt. They consider analogous problems, and try special cases and simpler forms of the original problem in order to gain insight into its solution. They monitor and evaluate their progress and change course if necessary. Students check their answers to problems using a different method, and they continually ask themselves, “Does this make sense?” They can understand the approaches of others to solving complex problems and identify correspondences between different approaches.
CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP2Reason abstractly and quantitatively. Students make sense of quantities and their relationships in problem situations. They bring two complementary abilities to bear on problems involving quantitative relationships: the ability to decontextualize—to abstract a given situation and represent it symbolically and manipulate the representing symbols as if they have a life of their own, without necessarily attending to their referents—and the ability to contextualize, to pause as needed during the manipulation process in order to probe into the referents for the symbols involved. Quantitative reasoning entails habits of creating a coherent representation of the problem at hand; considering the units involved; attending to the meaning of quantities, not just how to compute them; and knowing and flexibly using different properties of operations and objects.
CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP5Use appropriate tools strategically. Students consider the available tools when solving a mathematical problem. These tools might include pencil and paper, concrete models, a ruler, a protractor, a calculator, a spreadsheet, a computer algebra system, a statistical package, or dynamic geometry software. Students at various grade levels are able to identify relevant external mathematical resources, such as digital content located on a website, and use them to pose or solve problems. They are able to use technological tools to explore and deepen their understandings of concepts.
CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP6Attend to precision. Students try to communicate precisely to others. They try to use clear definitions in discussion with others and in their own reasoning. They state the meaning of the symbols they choose, including using the equal sign consistently and appropriately. They are careful about specifying units of measure, and labeling axes to clarify the correspondence with quantities in a problem. They calculate accurately and efficiently, express numerical answers with a degree of precision appropriate for the problem context.
