Pumpkin Pie in a Bag

Remember the Cherry Pie in a Bag activity? Here’s another classroom favorite appropriate for fall.

Students can apply math skills by measuring ingredients and learn about pumpkins and agriculture. Pair it with an activity to learn about pumpkin growing cycles, read a fun fall or Halloween book, or create unique Jack o’ Lanterns based on each students’ characteristics and personality (activities coming in future posts, so check back soon).

This activity is appropriate for ages 3 to 12, depending on the accompanying activity and available supervision/assistance.

Find pumpkin facts and more activities in the Illinois Ag in the Classroom pumpkin ag mag.

Recipe credited to Illinois Agriculture in the Classroom.

Pumpkin Spice Cookies

It’s September! You know what that means- the season of pumpkin spice everything (literally everything). I’m definitely a fan of pumpkin spice lattes and my pumpkin spice candle, but the pumpkin spice M&Ms and pumpkin spice Oreos take things a step too far.

Here’s a recipe for an acceptable pumpkin spice-flavored snack: pumpkin spice cookies with cream cheese frosting.

What Happened to Learning?

I read a great article today. It’s part of the discussion the National Geographic magazine is hosting this year that explores food, specifically looking at the future of our food and where it comes from.

You can read the article for yourself here. It’s a discussion between three food writers about why we need to bring back home economics (now known as family and consumer sciences).

I’m 4 years out of high school and fresh out of college, and in the first few months of my full-time “big kid” job. This article really made me think. So I conducted an experiment.

The question: How many times do I use algebra in a day?* 

Lessons Learned: The Hardest Thing I’ve Ever Done

As a recent college graduate and young professional just starting out in the agriculture industry, I’m learning something new every day. Now that college students are returning to campus for the start of classes, I am really feeling the reality of being a graduate. I miss college, but I love what I do (and I definitely don’t miss the exams!). Reflecting back on the most important lesson I learned as an agriculture student, it would have to be my experience described in this post. I did not grow up in animal agriculture. I didn’t like what I had to do, but I did it because I had to and I learned from the experience. But now I sympathize with the difficult choices they must face from time to time.

I want to hear from you: What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned growing up and becoming involved in the agriculture industry? 

Call Me an Agvocate

PETA released yet another video this week, this time depicting a dairy farm in North Carolina. Whether or not that video was staged is still being debated. Dairy Carrie, a dairy farmer and active blogger, pointed out lots of abnormalities and questionable details about the described situation in the video, and you can check out her entire blog post here.

While releasing videos like this is common for PETA, I’ve never really paid much attention to them. They’re usually staged

Zucchini Pie

Have an abundance of zucchini? Me, too. I ended up with two of these giant zucks, courtesy of my parents’ garden.

One of the zucchinis (banana for scale)

Using just ONE of these squashes resulted in muffins, pie, and enough leftover to freeze for more muffins later.

Zucchini is really versatile vegetable, and can be manipulated to taste less like a vegetable and more like fruit. This zucchini pie recipe is adapted from an apple pie square recipe my mom made when I was growing up. You’ll find lots of recipes out there if you Google “mock apple pie”. Here’s mine:

When Social Media Goes Wrong

In case you missed it, yesterday The Original Muck Boots Company’s social media team had a really, really bad day. It all originated from these two posts, uploaded to Facebook on Friday afternoon: