Do you know how to make a pizza? Each year during National Agriculture Week the Joliet Junior College Weitendorf Agricultural Center is the home for a teaching session where volunteers educate students and teachers about pizza, or perhaps more specifically, where the ingredients for pizza come from on farms. Different learning stations were visited for 12 minutes each by the 692 students and 38 teachers.
At the dairy station the students sat in front of a young heifer. They learned that at ___ years old she would be old enough to give birth and produce milk. She will eat ___ pounds of forage and drink ___ gallons of water per day to produce ___ pounds of milk, equal to ___glasses of milk. Refrigeration of milk starts immediately after milking the cow; it is very warm since a cow’s body temperature is ___ degrees. If you add ___ and ___ to the milk, you can make ___; which of course is a main ingredient of pizza.
At the beef station the students sat in front of ___,____ crossed calf and learned the 4 chambers of a ruminant are ___,___,___, and ___. Not only is beef used in pizza, but participants also learned the hide could make ___ baseball gloves, or ___ shoes, or ___ baseballs or ___ belts. They learned about how much (ZIP) ___,___ and ___ comes from one hamburger.
At the wheat station the students learned we eat ___billion pizzas per year in the U.S. and that starts with ___ made from wheat. We raise ___ acres of wheat in Will County, and an acre is the size of a ___. For a hands-on lesson, the students ground wheat into flour.
At the corn and soybean station they learned a bushel of corn and soybeans weigh ___ and ___ respectively and what ingredients made from them were used in pizza. The students were seated in front of a combine and grain drill that were used to explain how farmers plant and harvest their crops. Corn can also be used for ___,__,___,___ and ___. Soybeans are processed into two main ingredients of ___ and ___.
At the pig/pork station the students met Herb and Millie, siblings that were born on Thanksgiving Day and already weighed 165 pounds. A pig’s squeal is ___ decibels, as loud as a___. They also learned about many of the other products produced from a pig in addition to the ___ and ___ that you may put on your pizza.
The Master Gardeners Rick and Gary taught at the vegetable station just as they have for almost 20 years. They had a lesson on ___ and ___, common ingredients on pizza. The students learned the various foods we eat that come from the ___,___,___,___ and ___ of plants.
I am aware that one of the farmer volunteers challenged the students to google search tree grafting videos and to look up Norman Borlaugh and Archimedes; one won the Nobel Peace Prize breeding wheat and the other invented an irrigation device thousands of years ago to help irrigate wheat fields in Egypt. This is only a snippet of what the students were taught that day.
Are you curious to know the answers? I will give you one; a cow’s temperature is 102 degrees. You would know many, if not all, if you had been at this event hosted by JJC and the Will County Farm Bureau. If you are not a 4th grader on a field trip perhaps you can volunteer next year and get the answers firsthand. I am glad I was there; I can now brag I am smart as a 4th grader.
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