Planting The Seeds: Agricultural Organizations in Kansas and Ohio Have Programs Aimed at Ethanol Education, Training Teachers and Even Providing Funding to Ensure the Knowledge Is Passed on to Students.

by Matt Thompson (Ethanol Producer Magazine) For at least one student in James Burk’s engineering class at Trego County Community High School in WaKeeney, Kansas, ethanol is a passion. “I have them test different factors and kind of design their own recipe for how they would best produce a fermentation for ethanol …. We haven’t got to it yet this year, that part of it. We’re working on some wind energy stuff, and he keeps chomping at the bit wanting to get back to ethanol.” Burk says the student is so excited about ethanol, this is the second year he’s voluntarily enrolled in the engineering class.

Burk, a science teacher, is able to use those ethanol production labs in his classes thanks, in part, to an education effort undertaken by Kansas Corn, a state corn advocacy group made up of the Kansas Corn Growers Association and the Kansas Corn Commission.

The focus is on training Kansas’ K-12 teachers to use ethanol, corn and biotechnology curriculum in the classroom, says Sharon Thielen, director of education for Kansas Corn. “Our goal is to provide lessons and materials so that Kansas teachers can start teaching about these topics as early as kindergarten and then get more advanced into those topics as they get closer to graduating high school.” Through the program, Kansas Corn hosts summer workshops for the state’s teachers, and trains them on specific labs relating to corn and ethanol.

He says the program is successful in helping students understand where and how the commodities grown in their backyards are used. “There’s a ton of science that’s there. That’s just a really cool way to make it all relevant for students and tying it in with what’s going on and what’s important in their environment and economy,” Burk says.

Ohio Corn & Wheat’s education program, Feed the World, is also funded through the state’s checkoff program. Unlike Kansas’ program, Ohio focuses on middle school teachers, says Brad Reynolds, director of communications for Ohio Corn & Wheat. “One way that they really wanted to get in with the education part of it was ... reaching middle school science teachers who are more and more removed from the farms themselves,” Reynolds says. Like Kansas’ program, Feed the World provides curriculum, supplies and training for teachers on topics related to corn and ethanol.

The benefits of the program, he (Derek Peine, CEO of Western Plains Energy and a member of the Renew Kansas board) adds, are providing teachers with supplies for educating students about ethanol, but also growing awareness about the fuel.

In 2018, Kansas Corn either trained or provided supplies to 725 teachers during the school year, who, in turn, taught about 20,500 students. And, Thielen says, most of the budget for those programs—87 percent—went directly to Kansas teachers.

According to Ohio Corn and Wheat, in 2018 the Feed the World program trained 82 teachers, and has trained a total of 320 since 2013. In addition, the lessons on ethanol are the most highly rated by the attending teachers.

While there are differences between the programs, both offer supplies to teachers who attend the workshops, a benefit that does not go unnoticed by teachers and stakeholders in both states. “When they go through this program … [the teachers are] over the moon excited about taking this back to the classroom. How disappointing would that be if they go back and they can’t actually do it because they don’t have the tools? So we try to provide them all of the tools they need to do that. … It’s a critical component, I think, of what makes this a success,” Reynolds says.

In fact, the program’s been so successful that many teachers have asked to attend the workshops more than once. But Thielen says that’s not ideal, as the focus is to allow as many teachers as possible to participate. But those requests led to a change in the upcoming summer’s workshops. “This summer is the first time we’re going to do a Seed to STEM 2.0, where we’re writing new labs, many about biodiesel and ethanol, where those teachers are going to learn some more, and they’ll get more supplies to teach more labs. READ MORE