USING FAMILY STORIES TO TELL THE WONDERS OF CORN AND ITS IMPACT ON FEEDING THE WORLD.

It isn't exactly Ma and Pa Ingalls and Laura and her big sister and the heart tugging Little House on the Prairie. Nor is it the Waltons in the mountains of North Carolina with John-Boy, Grandpa and the rest of the clan. But the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) "Corn in the Classroom" Web-based curriculum has taken a subject which on the surface seems somewhat unappealing to teachers and turned it into a case study about how to promote corn by using a family to tell the story of this important commodity.

The Web-based classroom curriculum on corn has 1,500 hits per month and is being used by teachers throughout the country, says Gary Bradley, NCGA strategic marketing communications manager, in the association's St. Louis-based office.

The nine stories used in the curriculum tell the story of a four-generation Minnesota farm family -- the Evans -- with mom, dad and children Elizabeth, Claire and David. Throw in Grandpa Hugh and you've got the makings of an innovative tool to reach students of all ages in a format designed to teach agricultural lessons from music to math to social studies and other subject areas.

The beauty of this curriculum is the realism in telling stories about how to grow corn, how and why to protect it from pests, how its uses help people and the nation's economy and a host of additional messages. It balances the socioeconomic benefits of farming, the surrealistic mood of the family's children walking down the long gravel driveway during the seasons surrounded by the growth stages of cornfields, and the reality of farming as a small business not unlike "storeowners in town."

"We're very excited about the program," says Bradley, who notes that the curriculum has been on the Internet for a little more than a year. "We've had remarks from teachers from New York to California. Most of these kids think of corn only from the sweet corn they eat in the summer to the corn they eat on their plate at dinner. This program teaches them that this is a huge industry and the corn they eat is just a very, very small part of what the corn industry is all about. From a PR standpoint, this program also helps our organization as a leader representing agriculture and the corn industry."

"NCGA is stepping to the plate in educating and informing the general public about the importance of the corn industry," says NCGA President Lynn Jensen, a corn grower from Lake Preston, S.D. "This curriculum provides educators with fresh and different examples for teaching the core subjects required by most states. At the same time, students enjoy learning about everything from corn's role in American history to genetics, the environment, satellites, geography, nutrition and much, much more."

FROM THE BEGINNING

The curriculum was written by an independent certified crop consultant, Maggie Jones of Lake Crystal, Minn. Maggie and her husband Bruce, also a crop consultant, own a farm (Maggie's home place) near Lake Crystal. Like the family in the story, the Jones' have three children -- Greta, 17 (Elizabeth in the curriculum), Lauren, 14 (Claire), and Zachary, 10 (David).

"I've done work for John Deere, Cenex, Growmark and others and been active in the Minnesota Corn Research Council and the NCGA," says Maggie. "A couple years ago I submitted a bid to write this because I had been studying ag curriculums for a long time and thought what was out there was too abstract and disconnecting. They were mostly fact sheets and curriculums on marketing. Nothing connected to real people. I wanted a curriculum about real people, real kids. I wanted to develop something to really help children of all ages immerse themselves in the subject and care about what they were reading."

The NCGA fell in love with Maggie's concept. She wrote the curriculum and finished it in early 1999. "It took longer than I thought -- about four months," she says. "We all had a goal to meet what teachers wanted and develop objectives for students to reach when using the curriculum. This made the lessons more complex, plus we had to develop lessons for younger children, as well as older ones."

Maggie consulted with teachers when writing the curriculum. "Some of the teachers knew ag, some didn't," she says.

IMPLEMENTATION

One needn't go any further than Maggie to find out what teachers think of the curriculum. She's taught it herself to fourth graders in a Mankato, Minn., elementary school. She's also used portions of it with a group of adults belonging to a vegetation management association. "I helped introduce to adults the technology of agriculture, with such subjects as use of satellites for GIS and GPS. I got lots of good comments," Maggie says.

"I taught fourth graders the lesson about David cooking. The kids were hypnotized when I read the story. You could have heard a pin drop. They hung on every word. My goal was to write stories so the kids wouldn't know they were learning. They couldn't believe all the uses of corn in food. The story was about making cupcakes and the corn syrup, starch and sugar used to make them."

Another group of elementary kids used the math curriculum. "It all worked very well," Maggie explains.

PROMOTION

When the program was initiated a year ago, Bradley used the NCGA membership list of 30,000 to get the word out. "We encouraged members to go to their local schools to promote the program and get teachers to use it," Bradley says. "We've also promoted it each month in our newsletter. Quite honestly, I'm amazed at what word-of-mouth among teachers has done."

A news release also was sent to farm publications and farm radio broadcasters. Articles from large metropolitan dailies like the Baltimore Sun to the smaller dailies like the Mankato Free Press has done features on the curriculum program. Naturally, the fact that the Internet is used to deliver the curriculum plays a large part in the public relations appeal to the program. And it's good PR for NCGA as well.

Part of the attraction is the technology of Web-based education. "I think it's wonderful to have a curriculum like this where teachers and students link to other areas to get additional information," Maggie says. "When we talk about GPS, I didn't have to write about satellite technology because users can link to a site that talks about building a satellite and how it works with GPS.

"When we talk about soil, they can link to the conservation service. When we talk about ethanol and biotechnology, it links to public policy debates on these issues. As a curriculum developer, this opens up a huge world for teachers and students."

Bradley says media response has been great. "The curriculum kind of sells itself to the media," he says. "We've had plenty of farm broadcaster calls doing interviews about the curriculum." Some include WHO, KRVN, AgriTalk and Ag Day Television.

The National Education Association (NEA), FFA and ag educators will be targeted this fall, Bradley explains. "It's important, now that it's been out for a year, that we get the word out. We're also constantly reviewing it and updating the content. As new breakthroughs are discovered, like polyols and polylactide (PLA) for example, consumers need to be educated."

Meanwhile, the Evans will continue to enlighten and inform teachers and students of all ages about corn and its value to society. As the curriculum explains, Elizabeth, Claire and David live in a world defined by the cycle of corn. "They see the planning and preparation, the planting, the cultivation, and the harvest. They know that one must come before the other, that there's an order to life."

Den Gardner owns Gardner & Gardner Communications, New Prague, Minn.