Theme: Gardening
for a Sustainable Future
Digging Deeper with Compost
While your compost is "cooking," don't just sit and wait --
your compost pile is a living laboratory and can be a centerpiece
for studies across the curriculum. Consider having students
conduct some of the following activities and brainstorm more
of their own.
- Regularly measure and chart the temperature and dimensions
of the pile over time.
- Draw or build a model of the layers or components in your
pile. Describe how they change. Which original ingredients
can be identified over time?
- Examine the different compost components under a microscope.
Draw, describe, and try to identify them.
- Sort and classify organic materials outdoors as either dry
(high carbon) or fresh (high nitrogen). Discuss how you made
decisions about how to classify them.
- Based on what you've learned about decomposition and composting,
draw a diagram to illustrate how an apple core could become
part of a tomato and then part of you.
- Calculate the proportion of school lunch trash that could
potentially be composted. Teach other students how to sort
school lunch trash into compostable and non-compostable materials.
- Conduct a survey to determine what percentage of student
families and teachers compost at home.
- Become compost "experts" and develop a newsletter or presentation
to help teach others.
- Find out what happens with grass clippings, leaves, and
other yard wastes collected in your town or city.
- Discuss this quote by Loren Eisley: "Nature has no interest
in the preservation of her dead; her purpose is to start their
elements upon the eternal road to life once more."
Author: Eve Pranis
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