Last year at the Education Workshop during the Maize Genetics Meeting, there was a great deal of enthusiasm for promoting the use of maize in K-12 Science Education. During the workshop several ideas were discussed. Among them was establishing a section of the Maize Cooperation Newsletter that contained ideas for using maize in the classroom. This year is the first, of what we hope is an annual section in the newsletter. Thanks to everyone who submitted their ideas and activities!

Your ideas are needed for future editions. If you have visited classrooms, given advice to or worked with teachers, or in any other way used maize in the classroom, your colleagues would love to hear about it. I will act as the coordinator to assemble the Education Section of the newsletter. Your ideas can be submitted to me via E-mail, Fax, diskette, or old-fashioned mail. I will put the section together and submit it as one piece to Ed Coe. In future years, I will need to get the information from you by December 15th, so that it can be submitted by the January 1st deadline.

At the 1993 Maize Genetics Meeting, it was decided that a committee would be established to gather information on current programs, establish contacts with those programs and national teaching organizations, and report back to the maize community what type of help it could best provide. Coordination with scientists using other genetic organisms will also be crucial to prevent redundancy of efforts. Ten persons, representing academic and company perspectives, volunteered to serve on this committe. Vicki Chandler (Univ. of Oregon), Ralph Bertrand (Colorado College), David Duncan (Monsanto), Julia Bailey-Serres (UC Riverside), Roger Krueger (American Cyanamid), Ronald Phillips (Univ. of Minnesota), Torbert Rocheford (Univ. of Illinois), Mary Schramke (BioRad), and William Tracy (Univ. of Wisconsin). Numerous other scientists had excellent suggestions and expressed a willingness to participate in various projects. I am attempting to keep an updated mailing list of all persons interested in receiving information regarding using maize in the classroom. If you did not receive a mailing from me last spring and fall and would like to be added to the list, please send me your complete address, telephone, Fax, and E-mail.

Vicki Chandler
Inst. of Molecular Biology
University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403-1229
(503)346-5136 (phone)
(503)346-5011 (FAX)
E-mail: [email protected] 

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