Moo-ve On Up: Massapequa Elementary Schoolers Adopt Dairy Cow

MASSAPEQUA, NY. — McKenna Elementary School students are getting more familiar with where their milk comes from this year through the adoption of a three-month-old dairy cow named Ivy.

School district representatives said that Ivy is living at Fouts Farm in Cortland, NY, and has been adopted by the elementary schoolers as part of a free, year-long program aptly named Adopt-A-Cow. As part of the adoption process, the class received a certificate of adoption, and receive regular reports on how Ivy’s doing from her host farmer, Julia.

As for their teachers, Axelrod and Gallo are connecting Ivy to subject areas across the curriculum, like teaching the students math concepts by tracking and charting Ivy’s height and weight. They’ve also taught science lessons about the development of animals, using Ivy’s growth as a firsthand source. For English lessons, students have had the chance to read nonfiction books about cows, while social studies students created their own maps of New York, mapping exactly how far Ivy is from their school. The answer? 268 miles.