NFU Graduate Imogen English reflects on the NFU’s activities on World School Milk Day
She writes:
September 26th was World School Milk Day – a globally celebrated programme that aims to highlight the benefits and successes of school milk programmes. On the day I joined the NFU’s Dairy and Education teams to a number of schools across Coventry to help raise awareness of the importance of supplying milk to schools.
Throughout the afternoon there were different activities for the children to become involved with, all based around the nutritional importance of milk, the background behind milk production and the versatility of dairy products in general.
John Alpe, a member of the NFU’s Dairy Board, gave the students a presentation about his own dairy farm and the journey of milk; from farm to fridge. The children also got the opportunity to take part in a poster competition, which involved a short research project on dairy and nutrition using the Farmvention teacher resources. I was involved in what was undoubtedly the most entertaining (and messy!) part of the day, where the children learnt how to make ice cream. Through the use of an ice cream ball and a few simple ingredients, the students were encouraged to use their maths and science skills to calculate the amount of milk and cream needed, the reasoning behind why salt was put in with the ice and the mechanism of how the cold temperature of the ice and salt mixture reacted with the ingredients to make ice cream. The children took part in relay races in order to shake the mixture sufficiently enough to create the ice cream – some more successfully than others!
It was great to see young students understand the nutritional value of milk and how it combines with other ingredients to make a variety of food products that they might not have thought about before, with some even informing me that whilst they did not like milk, they loved the ice cream they made with it!
I think it can be easy to forget that for some children brought up in city centres there can be a real disconnect with where their food comes from. Engaging in interactive programmes such as World School Milk Day is a great opportunity for children to learn both about nutrition and to understand the production process of their milk. These experiences also help to spark an interest in learning where more of their food comes from, helps form consumption trends for the future and develops an interest in the farming community as a whole.