Ledger photo / SCOTT POWELL Northwest Elementary third grade student Cameron Burnett reads a math riddle Friday for Debra Kraska's class to solve at Eagle Lake Elementary in Edwardsburg, Mich. A video conference lesson allowed the classes to take turns solving math problems based on the book "Math Curse" by Jon Scieszka. Northwest Elementary third grade students in Ashley Millwood's class conquered their own math curse Friday with help from new friends in Michigan.

Millwood's third grade class and Debra Kraska's third grade class at Eagle Lake Elementary in Edwardsburg, Mich., read the book "Math Curse" by Jon Scieszka. The book's narrator comes up with a series of math problems for readers to solve the day after a teacher announces, "You know, you can think of almost everything as a math problem."

During a video conference Friday, Millwood and Kraska watched their students riddle each other with everyday math problems the students created as a result of reading the "Math Curse" book.

Each math problem was multistep where students had to look at several pieces of information to get the right answer.

"Many of our students may never get to Michigan. This videoconference allowed my students to interact with students from another state," Millwood said. "We really enjoyed spending time doing math problems with the class from Michigan. We hope we will get a chance to do this again."

Videoconferencing is a system where students can see and hear someone in another location using multimedia equipment that broadcasts two-way video and audio communications via satellite. It is one of several technology projects the school district started when it used state lottery funds to add technology coaches last school year.

Students in Millwood's and Kraska's classes shared information about their schools and locations before they worked the math riddles.

Edwardsburg is a small village located near Eagle Lake in Cass County in Michigan. Eagle Lake Elementary has only second and third grades. The school has 340 students.

Edwardsburg calls itself "The Fishing Bait Capital of the World." A huge fishing and hunting center named "Lunkers" is located nearby.

Edwardsburg is the birthplace of 2005 USA Outdoors discus throw champion Becky Breisch.

These are among the trivia facts students could learn with a quick trip to the Internet.

The Northwest Elementary students were introduced to Edwardsburg in a more personal way through the efforts of district technology coach Rita Easler.

Easler got in contact with Kraska by e-mail after the Michigan teacher expressed an interest on a message board about doing a video conference with a class in South Carolina. Easler was able to arrange for Millwood's third grade to participate in a joint math lesson centered on the book "Math Curse" that Kraska's class was about to read.

"Our students really liked how they could stand in front of the camera and speak directly to the students in Michigan," Easler said. "A video conference is a great way to allow students to learn with children their age from another part of the country."