Earthways Presentation

Just when you thought we had learned it all about composting...

Today Kim from Earthways (a division of the Missouri Botanical Gardens) came to our classroom to do a presentation about composting and recycling. We learned a lot of interesting facts, like:

Paper can be recycled 5-7 times.

In the United States, one person makes about 5 pounds of trash each day.

In Missouri, one person makes about 6 pounds of trash each day.

In St. Louis, one person makes about 9.5 pounds of trash each day.

The top 5 most common things in the landfill.

1.  paper

2.  food

3.  plastics

4.  metal

5.  glass

We can recycle or compost ALL of those things!

Students got to practice sorting trash into compostable, recyclable, and landfill piles. This is perfect before our cafeteria recycling and composting starts on Nov. 5th. 

Some students got to act out a food chain, learning about the important role of decomposers. Then we got to dig through real compost, finding all kinds of critters. It was very engaging and educational. 

Ms. Kim taught us lots of great information.

Madeline and Clayton sort their trash.

Sydney and Kira discuss how to sort their trash.

Some students act out a food chain.

Compost digging- Eddie, Olivia C., Max, and Alexis

Olivia C., Sarah, and Wyatt

Marin, Madeline, Clayton, Olivia, and Kira find some critters.

Pete, Audrey and Maya look at some worms and roly polies.

Worms!

We have been waiting for weeks for our worms to arrive. After ordering them from two different companies and waiting for a month, they finally arrived via FedEx on Friday afternoon (sadly, after school was out). I was already gone for the weekend myself, so we were lucky to have Mrs. Wellman, Mr. Pursley, and Mrs. John around to set them up for us. I certainly owe them one!

Our Worm-A-Way worm bin

 Our worms (all 1,000 of them) are living  in a special box in our room. They have newspaper bedding and a little soil, mixed with water in their tub. We will feed them a few pounds of compostable material each week, and wait for them to do their work. Hopefully, we will have some great compost by spring to use in our new Project IDEA gardens.

Everyone was very excited to open the lid and check out the worms. The worms like to hide, so we have to dig to find them.

We have decided to make it a classroom job to be the weekly worm keeper. This person will help feed the worms, keep their tub moist, and keep a log of everything we are feeding them. It's not easy to look after 1,000 class pets!

One cool effect of this project already is that more kids are bringing compostable snacks, which tend to be healthier. Kids are very excited to feed their banana or orange peels or leftover fruit or veggies to the worms. This is am outcome I hadn't even anticipated.

Today Mr. Krena, our talented third grade teacher, sang his original worm song with us. The song is absolutely perfect for this learning.

In case you were wondering, we can not tell them apart. We have decided to name them all Bob.

Compost Project 3

Maya, Sarah, and Sydney wrote a song about composting.

Kira and Olivia P. share some of their favorite facts about composting.

Compost Projects 2

Here are a few more great compost projects to share:

Some of our students decided that Peace, Love and Compost was a good motto for our class and projects.

Allison wrote a book about composting that she read to a first-grade classroom.

Eddie wrote a book called All About Composting that he read to Mrs. Prichard's class.

Zack wrote The Diary of a Millipede.

Alexis, Wyatt and Olivia C. made a video to show what they know about composting.

Compost Projects- Part 1

We have been learning about soil and composting for weeks now. To show what they know, students selected a compost project to work on. Their goal was to teach other people about composting, and they had 7 different choices about how to do that. I wanted students to be creative and to choose a project they would enjoy. After discussing the expectations of each project, students made a choice and signed the Composting Project Contract.

A big part of working on this project was choosing the audience and the goal. Some students chose to teach younger children about composting, while other chose to teach parents about how to compost at home, or teach the entire school about composting in the cafeteria (which we hope to start soon). I think this focus helped make their projects more meaningful.

We worked on the projects every morning for two weeks. I was amazed at how seriously the students took their work. Some kids were researching on computers and in books, while others dove right into writing scrips and rough drafts.

At the end of the two weeks, everyone has completed a project. We are working on editing some of the videos, or binding a few books, but all of their learning and producing is complete. I love how invested the students are with their projects. They are so excited to share them with others. Some students will be reading their books to other classes next week. Others are excited to show off their songs and videos. Posters are now hanging in our hallway.

Here are a few of the many projects that are complete:

This is a video by Trevor, Pete, Clayton and Gus demonstrating how they set up a composting experiment with worms. We are still observing the experiment in our classroom. We owe a BIG thanks to Mrs. John for helping with the experiment and video.

Alex made a poster of a Log Hotel. We read a book called The Log Hotel, about a tree that fell over, and all of the living things that helped it decompose. Alex cut out pictures of animals and fungus that caused his log to break down.

Max made a brochure about how to compost at home. We sent it home with each student in our class and gave it out to other teachers at Keysor.

Audrey and Marin create a nonfiction book about critters that live in a compost bin. They even included a table of contents. They will read their book to a kindergarten class next week.

Madeline wrote and illustrated an ABC book about composting. She will share it with kindergarten students next week.