Contest livens up student education event

Physical activity…fun and games…a little bit of education about fresh-farm products…they all played a role in a recent event at the Storm Lake Elementary School in Iowa, where the district’s eight classes of fourth-graders competed in an obstacle course and corn-shucking contest while getting familiar with the crop that is a mainstay of the Iowa economy.

It’s also a delicious accompaniment to lunch, as the kids and all their classmates districtwide found out later that day, when the corn shucked during the contest was served at lunch at all Storm Lake school sites.

“We wanted to do something with corn because it’s the first Farmers Market item we do each year,” explains Whitney Vohs, foodservice director at Storm Lake Community School District for management company Lunchtime Solutions. Farmers Market items are locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables that are highlighted on Storm Lake school menus each month.

The winning class celebrates.

“The corn usually comes to us already shucked, but we talked to the elementary school principal and they agreed that [a shucking contest] would be a fun thing for the kids to do,” Vohl explains.

But just getting kids to shuck corn didn’t seem to be enough.

“Ashley [Keene, assistant foodservice director] and I asked ourselves, ‘how can we make this so they are not just shucking corn?” Vohl says. “Yes, they can do that, but it’s kind of boring and we wanted to make it more fun and engaging for the kids, so we asked the PE department if they could loan us some of their gear, such as hurdles and jump ropes. They were glad to assist and even helped us set up, as did the principal and assistant principal.”

The activity was limited to fourth-graders, the highest grade level in the elementary school, because it was felt that shucking corn does take a bit of strength that younger children may not yet have.

Some 200 fourth-graders participated, with the eight classes competing against each other in a kind of relay race in which each child in turn would jump a couple of hurdles, zigzag around some cones, jump rope five times, then grab and shuck an ear of corn into a trash barrel before returning to the line to hand off the relay to the next child.

The shucking contest was scheduled to take place a couple of hours before lunch service so the corn could be gathered and prepared to be served with the pizza that was the main feature of the day’s menu in the district cafeterias.

Storm Lake is a district of about 2,600 students located in western Iowa. The corn came from Morse’s Farm Market in nearby South Dakota and was the district’s Farmers Market featured item in August. It was followed in September by melons and by apples in October.