Today's high school students can learn about everything from calculus to current events, but few students believe that lessons in algebraic equations or chemistry will be useful after graduation.

Yet there are some practical skills that students can use throughout their life. And many such skills are being taught in family and consumer science courses.

Most of the population would know them as home economics, but today's schools teach more than just sewing and cooking skills.

The name change came in the early 1990s when people began to realize that students were learning more than just basic home economics, said Karen Altenthal, a teacher at Central High School.

Classes range from fashion strategies to food preparation.

Students at Notre Dame Regional High School can take semester-long courses in food preparation and housing and interior design. A life skills class gives an introduction to family and consumer sciences, with units in food and cooking and sewing.

The classes are elective, which means they aren't required for graduation. But students gladly enroll.

Susan Steele, a teacher at Notre Dame Regional High School, has 16 students enrolled in a life skills class that focuses on sewing. There are another 84 students combined who enrolled in three sections of a foods and cooking course.

During the semester, students prepare foods and even plan a food and nutrition fair with enough samples for all the students and staff.

Students enjoy the class because it isn't as demanding as an academic course in math or science and they can talk while they work. And if a recipe flops, "they do learn and can figure out why," Steele said.

Food classes also are popular at Central High School. Altenthal is teaching seven sections during this school year, partly because of an enrollment demand.

"Students know they've got to eat for the rest of their lives," Altenthal said. And many will move out of their parents' home after high school and need to know how to prepare a meal for themselves, she said.

Students have come back after high school and told Altenthal that they used some of the recipes from the foods classes while away at college. Before the year's end, students will prepare desserts, vegetables, casseroles and meat dishes.

"It builds some basic skills and they enjoy it," Altenthal said. She covers basic meal planning, nutrition and nutrient value in foods and time management. Students have to plan the menu, prepare a shopping list and complete their cooking in two class periods.

"It boosts their self-confidence level," when they've finished, Altenthal said. "They feel good when they can follow a recipe and get good results."

The same is true for students who complete sewing projects. They learn a skill that gives them visible results.

Students at Notre Dame start with the basic stitches and learn about sewing straight lines before threading sewing machines and starting on a project.

Students chose kits for making pillows or patterns for shorts and sleeping pants. A few chose to make other articles, like a dress, a body pillow cover and a patchwork pillow.

Janna Schulte knows that sewing "isn't my calling in life," but she is committed to finishing a snake pillow.

John Holland had only done some minor sewing, after lessons from his mother, before he enrolled in the life skills class at Notre Dame. "Once you get the hang of it, it's not so bad," he said. "Embroidery is the hardest."

But the class could be the conclusion of his sewing career, he said.

Other students liked that the class taught them how to hem pants or to sew on missing buttons from their clothes.

"This is practical stuff that everybody needs to know," Steele said.

ljohnston@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126