SMITHSBURG - It was a question that stumped many fourth-graders at Smithsburg Elementary School. Which milk product - heavy cream, light cream or buttermilk - can be turned into butter?
Students in Richele Gift's class, working in groups of two and three students, learned the answer firsthand April 16. Under the direction of Wayne Buckingham, a teacher with the Maryland Agricultural Education Foundation, the fourth-graders conducted an experiment called "Cream to Butter."
First, Buckingham passed out maps of Maryland, showing how many cows are in each county. Washington County has about 16,000 cows, second to Frederick County, which has about 26,000 cows.
Students also learned that one cow can produce about 90 glasses of milk each day.
Using lab sheets and the scientific method, each group came up with a hypothesis, or guess, of which of the three milk products would produce butter. Two teams predicted heavy cream, two predicted light cream and four teams thought it would be buttermilk.