Kids are mooved, not cowed, by bovine visitor

It’s not unusual to see wild turkeys and deer roaming certain neighborhoods in Walnut Creek.

But a cow at a school? Many of us in Walnut Creek have grown to appreciate our area’s rich variety of backyard wildlife, but cows are a suburban rarity.

Which is why the Dairy Council of California spent Tuesday morning at on Larkey Lane.

Kimberlee Youman, an educator with the Dairy Council of California, brought the council’s mobile classroom—which includes Milky Way, a full-grown Holstein — to the school to teach students about dairy production and nutrition.

The Dairy Council of California, founded in 1919, operates six mobile classrooms throughout the state.

In the outdoor presentation students learned about the parts of a cow, how a cow is milked, how milk gets from the cow to the grocery store and the role dairy products play in a healthy diet.

“I learned that cows can be milked only when they have babies and that if you laugh at them they get scared,” said one kindergartner.

“I didn’t know that they have four compartments in one stomach,” said a fifth-grader. A common misconception is that cows have four different stomachs.

Another fifth-grader added that her favorite part of the presentation was learning how the cow was milked.

After the presentation, students were allowed to pet a baby calf, Kevin, as Youman fed it from a large baby bottle.

Youman said the mobile classroom program teaches California students —especially those who do not live in agricultural communities — not just about dairy products but good nutrition as a whole.

“Healthy eating can be easy,” she said. “We want them to know where milk comes from and how it gets to the dinner table.”