Fun With Lunch?
by Kenny Luna, North Babylon, NY on 01. 7.07
At least that's what kids on the worm patrol at Zellerbach elementary school in Camas, Oregon Washington have discovered can be the case with vermicomposting, as they've undertaken the task of separating out the easily compostable parts of school lunch, and composting them right there at school. Essentially, it's part of the Camas Roots program to teach kids about nutrition and the environment, along with steps each of them can take to help improve both while beautifying their school at the same time through the maintenance of a 5,000 square foot garden.
The program was launched last year by parents and school officials, working not only with students in the school, but also pulling in other schools in the district across grade levels, a preschool, the Boys & Girls Club, and the Clark County Juvenile Justice Restorative Community Service Program to help as well. So imagine that, youth offenders of petty crimes being sentenced to an education about the environment instead of destroying it, while learning how to play well with other kids at the same time!
And educators across the district also love it because they're able to incorporate the lessons of this community effort across the curriculum. It's information is able to be easily incorporated into all kinds of lessons, and applied to virtually every level of coursework, from simple counting skills taught with seeds at the elementary level to advanced coursework on agriculture at the high school level. When that's combined with all of the positive benefits a community effort can bring, I'm thinking that maybe this is the type of program that would work well in your district?
The use of hands on projects like the ones listed above and the Edible Schoolyard are great ways to teach numerous lessons about nature, math, and life. Via KCRW's Good Food program, I heard about an Edible Schoolyard program in New Orleans (http://www.esynola.org/) that is making great things happen.
I have often thought that since worms can digest paper, perhaps the CIA should use them -- with vegetable waste inputs from nearby restaurants and farms -- to dispose of classified documents. The metals in the ink, however, are probably not good for worms and something you don't want in the resulting compost.
A funny bumpersticker I saw on Friday: "A Rind is a Terrible Thing to Waste: Compost Your Food Scraps"
Minor correction: Camas is in Washington, not Oregon.
Sorry, but Camas is in Washington state (even though the story was in the Oregonian)
"The use of hands on projects like the ones listed above and the Edible Schoolyard are great ways to teach numerous lessons about nature, math, and life. "
Sadly, many of my generation were psychologically scarred at school. Back in those less enlightened times, children were forced to learn numerous lessons about math by using, um, y'know ... math.