RESOURCES
Iowa Farmer Today's CornCam
Watch corn grow LIVE on your computer screen! CornCam includes a farmer's journal and pictures of key dates in the current crop's history.
King Corn
The Corn Growers guidebook includes a myriad of features that are indeed "corny": corn culture, corny ideas for classroom activities and the "Chat 'n Chew Caf". The site also includes instructions on how to create your own corn maze and corn smut (corn fungus) links.
The Maize Page
Not that kind of maze (for corn mazes see below.) This Iowa State University site has extensive info on corn in its original form, maize. The site provides a summary of the biology, information on its origins, history, cultural and social significance of maize.
Ohio Corn
The official site of the Ohio Corn Growers Association whose mission is to create and increase opportunities for corn growers in a changing world. Contains little-known corn facts and a history of the vegetable.
Ontario Corn
Clasroom activities about corn are included on this site. Includes lots of ideas for lessons, including a corn quiz. (ex: An acre of forest is more beneficial to the environment than an acre of corn?) Also, an extensive list of the products that use corn and how corn is used in several products.
A Native American History of Corn
Many people do not know the Native American contribution to the foods we eat. This site explores how Native Americans transformed maize through special cultivation techniques.
CORNY FUN
"World's Only Corn Palace"
The site for "the world's only Corn Palace." Each year murals are created on the exterior of the building using thousands of bushels of corn by local artists. There is a live webcam of this unusual corn structure.
Sever's Corn Maze
A maze in Minnesota made entirely of planted corn by the Sever family. Each year family members design a new maze along different themes. President Clinton, among other luminaries has visited the midwestern corn maze.
POPCORN
The Popcorn Board's Official Popcorn Page
This animated website contains information and resources for teachers and kids. Includes recipes, histories and an "Encyclopedia Pocornica."
A Brief Popcorn History
Tens of thousands of years before there were movies, there was popcorn. This site from the Fact Monster website briefly explores the history of our favorite cinema snack food.
CORN-RELATED BOOKS
The Story of Corn by Betty Fussell
The Story of Corn is a unique hybrid, drawing upon history and mythology, science and art, enectdote and image, personal narrative and epic, to tell the extraordinary story of the grain that built the New World." (From the Back Cover
Indian Givers : How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World by Jack Weatherford
Clarifies and articulates the contributions Indians of the Americas made to the US including staple US foods such as Corn ad the Potato. Considered a groundbreaking history.
Dinner at the New Gene Café: How Genetic Engineering Is Changing What We Eat, How We Live, and the Global Politics of Food. by Bill Lambrecht
Lords of the Harvest: Biotech, Big Money, and the Future of Food by Daniel Charles.
The book chronicles the evolution of biotechnology in agriculture, from ideas to first research to the industry that exists today and all of the controversy that surrounds it.
PBS Resources
Frontline: Harvest of Fear
Exploring the growing fight over Genetically Modified Food, this companion site to the two-hour Frontline contains resources, interactive games and a teacher's guide.
Frontline: Engineer a Crop
Make the size of your corn bigger using the techniques farmers used before the advent of hybrid seed. (Shockwave plug-in required)
Frontline: Guess What's Coming to Dinner?
Tuck in your napkin, pick up your fork -- well, your mouse, anyway -- and get a taste of the next wave of GM foods.
About All You Can Eat: Superfoods
A classroom activity guide about the origins and history of three basic foodstuffs -- corn, wheat and soy.