Ask a third-grade class where chocolate candy comes from, and you might be surprised at the answers.

"Hershey Park?" "Switzerland?" How about: "Tennessee: Lots of cows there for milk chocolate."

And they thought the people who harvest the cocoa and work in the chocolate factories are farmers, grownups or "28 or older" to be a factory worker — certainly not kids their age.

It was eye-opening when the students realized that if they lived in a cocoa-producing area, they could be harvesting the pods, applying pesticides and carrying machetes and heavy loads. "And these factories were most assuredly not where Willy Wonka works," said Martha Bilsback, a teacher at Myers Corners School in Dutchess County.

Bilsback was one of several Wappingers Congress of Teachers members who turned Halloween into a teachable moment with free samples of Fair Trade chocolate and a lesson about poverty and child labor problems in the mainstream chocolate industry.

Sixth-grade teacher Christine Romano used an electronic whiteboard to pull up NYSUT's Fair Trade Web site and show her students a map of the world and where all the products are grown.

"I think students were engaged and interested in the whole idea," Romano said. "I know it must have made an impression because when my students moved on to an assignment designing temples with modern themes, one group is making a temple to chocolate and one of the 'gods' of their temple is the Fair Trade god."

Dawn Sala, elementary at-large representative for the Wappingers Congress of Teachers, said educators were eager to use the online lessons and excited about 900 Fair Trade chocolate samples as part of the Reverse Trick-or-Treating program promoted by NYSUT and the Labor-Religion Coalition of New York State.

In that initiative by the human rights advocacy group Global Exchange, trick-or-treaters offer candygivers a gift in return — a small Fair Trade chocolate bar and a card promoting the use of fairly traded products.

NYSUT Secretary-Treasurer Lee Cutler said the program has inspired many classroom discussions about the prevalence of child labor worldwide and the importance of social justice. He will be visiting Brentwood TA's Pam O'Brien's eighth-grade students who participated in Reverse Trick-or-Treating and have follow-up questions about Fair Trade.

Cutler said Fair Trade lessons about chocolate and other products can certainly be extended through the school year. High school English teacher Mark Jackett of Smithtown TA plans to introduce his students to Fair Trade and what they can do as part of his December "Make the World a Better Place" lessons. For more information and curriculum links, go to the Social Justice Center at www.nysut.org.