Grades 6-8

Mystery #1 "Could It Be Corn?"

In this reader students will learn what products are made from each part of the corn kernel including bioplastics and ethanol. To finish up the lesson students will conduct a corn science investigation by creating their own corn plastic.

Overview

This teacher’s guide is broken into different sections with suggestions of how to use the reader in the classroom and provide ideas on how to extend the learning of your students.

Printable Teacher Guide

Vocabulary Words

There are seven vocabulary words to be found throughout the reader. They are bolded with a small explanation to help define the word. Other ways to learn more about these are:

Have your students find the definitions to the words on their own before reading.
Draw pictures of the words which will help them make meaningful connections

Student Worksheet

Print off the activity worksheets that can be used while student go through the RFA ethanol journey.

Inside

Page two highlights the uses of corn and how different parts of the kernel are used for different products. Using the information on the page, create a visual that can be used for the classroom by doing the following:

Display a photo of an ear of sweet corn and an ear of dent corn.
By each ear of corn, identify items made from each of the two different types of corn. This really helps students because they often think sweet corn is the type of corn used for most corn products when in fact, most products are made from dent corn.

“The Many Uses of Corn” poster found via the QR code can be projected on a screen for the entire classroom to see. You can use the corn comprehension questions as an assignment or to spark discussion.

Page three focuses on ethanol, from how it is produced to the possible careers it has to offer. The Renewable Fuels Association provides a virtual road trip. The included activity sheet can be used to go over the different aspects of ethanol.

Back Cover

On page four, the Corn Science Investigation provides a hands-on activity and allows for discussion about renewable and nonrenewable resources. It gives students the opportunity to talk about human activity, the impact and take the investigation further learning about ocean pollution of petroleum-based plastics. Students can also create a C.E.R. claim for how corn plastics may be more beneficial to our environment.

Below are some other sites that have activities about plastics:

Newsela offers an excellent article on nonrenewable resources, including a writing prompt and 4-question quiz. Corn plastics is featured as an alternative to petroleum-based plastics.
Kansas Corn STEM has a corn plastics lab in the lesson library. This lab features additional ways to create corn plastics, yet it does require more materials than the one featured in the reader.

This lesson is the work product of the Kansas Corn Commission. Our lessons are written in collaboration with Kansas teachers for use in the classroom. Teachers may copy and share this curriculum. Use of this product for commercial or promotional use is prohibited without express permission of Kansas Corn.