If you’re like me, this is one of your favorite times of the year. 🎃🥣🏈🍂
I get so excited to watch football, take a trip to the pumpkin patch, enjoy some chili with cinnamon rolls (if you’re from the Midwest, you know), and see all the leaves change color. I’m a sucker for all those autumn traditions.
But nothing tops going to the corn maze. One of my favorite childhood memories was our annual corn maze race. We’d show up to the maze, grab a map, pair up, and then race to the finish line. Whoever finished first, well, you’d get all the bragging rights!
Before we had high tech, sketching an image and creating a corn maze would take months. Right after planting the corn, planning the design would begin. Corn is planted in both directions to create a grid. Farmers would grab lots of graph paper, where each line would represent one row of corn, and sketch out a blueprint of their designed cornfield, marking out pathways, dead ends, and, of course, the finish line. This process would take lots of math, a few days, and several erasers. After mapping it out, the farmers would take to the field, cutting or pulling out the corn by hand to form their drawing.
Test out your own maze-making abilities with this fun activity: DIY Mazes With Graph Paper.
Thanks to technology, corn mazes today can be created in about a day! And, even better, farmers can create even more detailed designs. With GPS tracking and guided tractors, creating the labyrinth is so much easier. GPS systems are used to create the path that is cut from the corn. It starts with digitally creating a graph plot of an original design or even an uploaded template. Then, the GPS tracking system will map out the coordinates and plot out the maze and where the tractor needs to go for cutting. Now, that’s pretty a-maze-ing!
Learn more about STEM in farming.
Yes, going to the corn maze can be an exciting and awesome fall tradition. But, it can also provide educational benefits as well! Corn mazes are all about the journey, and you can learn a lot throughout the maze.
If you don’t have a couple acres to grow your own corn, take the maze home or to the classroom. Get hands-on with these fun STEM activities you can do anywhere:
Happy exploring!
Resources:
“Inside The Surprisingly High-Tech World Of Corn Mazes”
“With GPS And Graph Paper, Farmers Find A-maze-ing Ways To Bring In Cash”