One thing is clear: This is not your mother's home-economics class.

In fact, Debbie Martin, the teacher, will bristle if you use that term; her field is Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS), thank you very much - renamed nationally 15 years ago and restyled for the 21st century.

No more patient whisking of white sauce; no more stitching of aprons for Mother's Day gifts. Today's FCS students - about 25 percent of middle- and high school boys and girls nationwide - learn about whole grains and trans-fats, leases and budgets, child development and workplace ethics.

And though it's increasingly difficult for schools to find certified FCS teachers, educators say kids need this curriculum more than ever.

"Parents are working. They are busy. Kids are not learning those basic life skills and insights," says Virginia Vincenti, a professor of FCS at the University of Wyoming and coeditor of Rethinking Home Economics: Women and the History of a Profession.

"And now, of course, FCS is not just for girls."

Evidently not. In Martin's foreign-foods elective, Kyle Ingerman, Eric Roman, Sam Agoos and Colton Phillips take turns washing their hands, then glance at a recipe for fried rice with vegetables before grabbing garlic, carrots and soy sauce from the counter.

Phillips, 18, is headed to Johnson & Wales University to study culinary arts this fall. Agoos, 19, made a rack of lamb at home the other night. Roman's specialty is breakfast: eggs, bacon, ham, French toast. And Ingerman, who hates vegetables, rocks a 10-inch chef's knife back and forth, reducing a carrot to orange confetti.

"I like to cook," he says, "and it will be a useful tool when I'm older."

Martin, who has taught at Lower Merion for 17 years, made a few changes when she arrived. She ripped out some of the classroom's homey cabinets and added stainless-steel work surfaces: a little less Betty Crocker, a bit more Mario Batali.

She teaches lessons on the curative properties of herbs. Students videoconference with third graders to coach them about healthy eating.

"The skills they learn here, they'll use all their lives," she says. "Of course, everybody's going to eat out, it's the American way. But it's not all that healthy."

The home-economics movement - a way of applying science and technology to home and community life - started in the late 1890s. By 1959, about a quarter of secondary-school students took courses in the field. That number hasn't changed, though the gender balance - now nearly even at the middle-school level, 63 percent female and 37 percent male in high school - has shifted.

And the course array now includes basic foods and nutrition, foreign foods, restaurant management, apparel construction, interior design, and independent living skills, with lessons on payroll, credit cards and the stock market.

In a 2004 survey by the National Coalition for Family and Consumer Sciences Education, 33 states reported a shortage of FCS teachers. The survey also showed that while nearly every state offers some FCS courses, requirements and particulars vary.

Some FCS courses - particularly cooking classes that require a supply of fresh ingredients and a low student/teacher ratio - are expensive to run. Some schools, in their drive to boost basic skills in math, reading and writing, have eliminated FCS along with music, art and other "extras." In Philadelphia, only two middle schools still offer FCS classes, though some high schools have career-prep programs in culinary arts or hotel management.

Private schools have their own take on the subject. At Philadelphia's Waldorf School, for instance, all students from kindergarten through eighth grade learn to knit, crochet, embroider and sew - not as steps toward independent living, but because of the developmental skills those handcrafts require, such as rhythm and right/left coordination.

"Since the name was changed to Family and Consumer Sciences, we've done some soul-searching," says Wanda Fox, associate professor of FCS at Purdue University and past president of the National Association of Teacher Educators for Family and Consumer Sciences. "Is this something people are going to use? Is this going to make a difference in their lives?"

At Cedarbrook Middle School in Wyncote, Lauren Clarke interrupts her eighth graders' conversation about superheroes. "Grab your bins and get started!"

Today, students are finishing the drawstring bags they've sewn on a fleet of beige Singer machines. Needles drone as Nathan Sallard, 13, examines his bag, made from fabric printed with images of 10- and 20-dollar bills.

"If you don't know how to sew, you have to listen really well," he says. "But if you have a rip in your shirt, you can know how to put it back together instead of going somewhere to have it fixed."

Self-sufficiency is a buzzword of the new home ec, along with "life skills," "nutrition/wellness" and "consumer education." The newest curricula incorporate the study of organic foods, the "green movement," and Internet consumer fraud.

At Deptford High School in Gloucester County, lunch is still several hours away, but students in a Surviving Independent Living class stare transfixed at the Big Mac being consumed by Morgan Spurlock in Super Size Me, a documentary account of the 30 days Spurlock spent eating nothing but McDonald's food.

Maureen Ruf, who has been teaching for 31 years, can't resist adding editorial comments. "See how much his cholesterol went up, and it's only been three weeks. . . . Even if you do eat fast food, you can make better choices."

But after the film, when she asks students if they think it's effective that the school cafeteria no longer sells Tastykakes or Fruitopia drinks, they chorus, "Nah." And they make faces when Ruf shares a clipping about Burger King's introduction of "apple fries."

Ruf is undeterred; over the summer, she plans to create a study unit on "those energy drinks they all drink. I try to keep the curriculum current and trendy. I want them to be more ready for the real world."

Back at Lower Merion, the district's director of curriculum and instruction, Steven Barbato, pages through a binder outlining FCS courses, required for all seventh and eighth graders and offered as electives in high school. Barbato belongs to a food-and-wine club with three other families, is a fan of the Food Network, and still makes the chicken tetrazzini he learned in his own high school home-ec class.

A cooking lesson "is more than just fried rice," he says. "It's about working safely with tools, integrating math activities, the food-science component, communication and collaboration."

Downstairs, in Martin's culinary lab, the vegetable-averse Ingerman surveys his group's dirty dishes. "I'll dry, he washes, someone put it away," he announces. But the others are busy, forking up the fruits of their labor.

"This is pretty good," says Agoos, between mouthfuls of fried rice.

"That's, like, a perfect amount of soy," Phillips agrees.

"This is better than restaurant fried rice," says Roman. "Because we made it."