TASTE WISCONSIN!

Do you know when Wisconsin became a state? Do you know our state bird, state tree, and state flower? What’s our state’s motto?

If you went to elementary school here in Wisconsin, studying our state was part of the fourth-grade curriculum. Hopefully you remember all those answers – 1848, robin, sugar maple, wood violet, and Forward.

Learning about Wisconsin in fourth grade is still part of the lesson plan here in the state. As Alice in Dairyland, I get to visit with thousands of fourth graders around the state to help them learn about Wisconsin, especially Wisconsin agriculture.

In a partnership with the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board and the Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection, I have already visited with fourth graders in Crawford, Wood, Clark, Taylor, Milwaukee, Waukesha Walworth, Sheboygan, and Racine counties. I have more schools to visit in Winnebago, Rock, and Eau Claire counties.

Many students that I’ve encountered had never heard of Alice in Dairyland. I talk with them about how Alice isn’t a queen or a princess; she’s our state’s agricultural ambassador who travels nearly 40,000 miles across the state to speak at more than 300 events and more than 100 schools, all to help promote Wisconsin’s $59.16 billion agriculture industry.

We also talk about the word agriculture and what it means. Most of the classes I’ve visited know that agriculture is farming, but I tell them than agriculture isn’t just farming. There are more than 300 careers available in agriculture. Some of those jobs are on the farm while others are off the farm and in the city.

I spend time talking with the students about our farms and why they are so important to us. Fiber, fuel, and food come from our farms. To help the students learn about where our food comes from, we play a great game called Taste Wisconsin.

For this game, I give the students clues about some of the different dairy products, meats, fruits, vegetables, and grains that come from our Wisconsin farms. I start off with a pretty easy one. We have over one million cows here in Wisconsin that give us a beverage we all need to drink to get calcium. It’s milk, our official state beverage. Wisconsin ranks second in the nation in fluid milk production with more than two billion pounds of milk being given every month.

Figuring out the next clue is a little more difficult. Wisconsin became known as America’s Dairyland in the 1930s, but Wisconsin was known for producing this grain long before that. This grain is important for making products like bread and cereal. The answer to these clues is wheat, one of Wisconsin’s first major crops. With this clue and another one about wild rice, I talk with the students about history and how agriculture has always been important in our state.

This game challenges the students to think more about where their food comes from and how it gets from the farm to the grocery store and to our dinner plates. I tell them about how apples and strawberries are fruit that must be picked by hand. But cherries can be shaken from the trees; about 7,000 cherries can be shaken from a tree in less than seven seconds! The students get to learn a lot of really fun facts about Wisconsin agriculture during the game like about harvesting cherries. And how Wisconsin farmers grow about four million football fields or acres of corn. By the end of the game, I know the students’ head are just spinning with the fun facts that they’ve learned. To help them remember what they learned, each student gets a worksheet that looks just like the Taste Wisconsin game board. They can take the worksheet home and play the game with their families to help them learn all about Wisconsin agriculture, too.

I encourage the students to tell their families that Alice in Dairyland came to their class. Just like many of the students hadn’t ever heard about Alice in Dairyland, their parents might not have either. Each student I visit with also gets my Taste Wisconsin poster to take home.

And I don’t think we could talk about Wisconsin agriculture without talking about our state’s more than 600 types, styles, and varieties of Wisconsin cheese. During the game, the students get to learn about a few different kinds of cheese, how Wisconsin ranks first in cheese production, and how we win more awards than any other state in the U.S. and any other country in the world. To finish off a fun visit, each student gets a snack of a type of cheese that is a Wisconsin original – Colby cheese!

I have had a lot of fun visiting with thousands of students and teaching them about Wisconsin agriculture. I know I wouldn’t be able to reach nearly as many students if it weren’t for the support of DATCP, WMMB, and all the dairy farm families of Wisconsin.

Let me take this opportunity to thank them all for helping me teach students about our state’s extremely important agriculture industry!

Alice in Dairyland is Wisconsin’s agricultural ambassador. She travels more than 40,000 miles each year to spread the word about our agricultural industry. Alice in Dairyland can be reached by writing to DATCP, 2811 Agriculture Drive, P.O. Box 8911, Madison, WI 53718.

You can schedule Alice for an upcoming event by contacting the Alice in Dairyland Program at (608) 224-5080 or by e-mail at DATCPAlice@wisconsin.gov.