College
College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences
Department
Agricultural Education and Communication Department
Degree Name
Master of Agricultural Education
Date
6-2025
Advisor
Dr. Nicole Ray
Abstract
Within California, 360 schools have FFA programs; however, there are still over 2,000 high schools within the state. This equates to only 18% of California high schools having access to FFA. That number may be greater than 10%, however, access to agricultural curriculum is still limited. Considering US crop production is concentrated predominantly in California and the Midwest (USDA-ERS 2017), high schools in California, regardless of location and proximity to a farm, should have access to an agricultural curriculum. The purpose of this project was to create a curriculum where middle school and high school educators can show the process of what goes into dairy cow milking without the need for access to a physical farm. Educators could have students in woodshop classes build the dairy cow model from scratch, or they could build the model before partaking in the activity. Coming from a high school that did not have access to a farm or an FFA program, I wanted to create an opportunity for urban schools to learn and gain access to an agricultural curriculum without the barrier of limited farm access. The project “Dairy-To-Go” provides both a formal classroom curriculum for educators who lack access to a farm and an informal recruitment curriculum that can be set up anywhere to give the public more information regarding what goes into milking a cow.
https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/aged_rpt/290