Godfrey-Lee — Touching worms and dirt may gross out some, but not the members of Godfrey Elementary’s student council.
These fifth-graders dove hands-first into learning about how worms play a significant role in compositing, with help from H.O.P.E. Gardens.
H.O.P.E.’s education staff visited Godfrey earlier this spring to teach a lesson on worm composting and help the student council build their own composting bins. The organization also helps students maintain a school garden.
A carnation sale, hosted by the student council for Valentine’s Day earlier this year, raised the funds to purchase the bin. The group also received 200 red wiggler worms donated by Wormies, a composting business specializing in vermicomposting located in Alto.
“Not every worm can decompose very quickly. Red wigglers help to decompose (food) faster,” fifth-grader Hefferson said.
Fellow fifth-grader Amy said it was fun to hold the worms and name them: “There’s Sophia the First and Sophia the Second, Patricia…”
“And Freddie!” Hefferson enthusiastically added.
The students learned why they needed to drill holes in the compost bins, to let the water they sprayed on the contents drain out of them and what kind of waste can go in them.
“Fruits and veggies, but no greasy food and no citrus,” fifth-grader Kahlil said.
Added Hefferson, “Another idea (for the compost) was when students eat their lunch, they sometimes throw things away, so H.O.P.E. Gardens said that worms could eat the brown paper bags.”
Planting Sustainable Seeds of Change
H.O.P.E. Gardens Executive Director Julie Brunson said the worm composting project is also a pilot for expanding composting into 12 other school garden programs.
“It’s so exciting to see the student council take the lead in sustainability,” Brunson said. “Now they will be collecting food scraps and feeding their worms. The nutrient-rich worm castings will be used in the school garden (next fall), helping to close the loop on food waste.”
Fifth-grade teachers Tatianna Spencer and Olivia Alkema have served as advisers to the student council this year and assisted with getting the composting project up and running — or more accurately, decomposing.
“We’re proud of the advocacy and the leadership and that we have students that always want to help,” Spencer said. “Adults helped coordinate behind the scenes, but it was all their ideas coming to fruition.”
Alkema said the composting project also aligned with what the fifth-graders were learning in science.
“As part of our science curriculum we learned about decomposers, how worms help things grow and how they decompose and how their castings are nutrients,” she said. “They were basically able to take everything we learned and apply it with the worms.”
Added Spencer: “This project also tied in social studies with civic engagement. We encourage them to think about how they can do something about a problem and (how) to decrease food waste.”
As the first organized student council in at least 10 years, Spencer said, the group put on spirit days and set up a buddies program to read with third-graders. They hope to leave a path for upcoming fifth-graders at Godfrey to follow.
“If the student council keeps going next year, I want to see people give it a try,” Kahlil said. “If next year’s student council could do better than we did and keep it going, that would be great for students.”
Read more from Godfrey-Lee:
• Growing skills and knowledge by cultivating produce
• Student’s love of book, teacher’s Instagram post lead to author visit
