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Composting can be a wonderful addition to your science studies, in a very natural and fun way. This unit gives you all the resources you’ll need, whether you live in the city or the country.
Composting can be a wonderful addition to your science studies, in a very natural and fun way. This unit gives you all the resources you’ll need, whether you live in the city or the country.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
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Als PDF, TXT herunterladen oder online auf Scribd lesen
Composting can be a wonderful addition to your science studies, in a very natural and fun way. This unit gives you all the resources you’ll need, whether you live in the city or the country.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Verfügbare Formate
Als PDF, TXT herunterladen oder online auf Scribd lesen
Maureen Wittmann If you’ve never composted or if you live waste trapped in plastic garbage bags doesn’t in an urban area, I encourage you to still break down. Recycling organic matter into be open to introducing composting to your compost keeps a significant portion of your homeschool studies. Composting can be a family’s waste out of landfills and water wonderful addition to your science studies, treatment facilities. in a very natural way. Both the novice and Finally, your family budget and garden the urbanite can pull it off. This unit study will benefit. If my family bagged our fall introduces all the resources necessary for leaves, we would have to pay for special success. bags required by city law. Instead, we rake them into the compost pile and save a bundle. What is Compost? Additionally, by composting food scraps, our overall garbage removal is reduced. Compost is humus, made by combining If you spend money every spring buying a variety of organic waste and then put peat moss, manure, and mulch, you will be able through a curing process, usually of two to to eliminate that expense from your gardening six months. Added to soil, it gives plants an budget. I till my garden with homemade increase of nutrients, water availability, and compost and as a result my vegetables are protection from disease. It can be used in tastier and my flowers are brighter. I save place of peat moss, mulch, and manure. money, I end up with a better product, and my children learn. It is well worth the effort. Why Compost? How to Compost Home composting teaches children about life cycles, conservation, thriftiness, How you go about composting will and the interconnectedness of nature. By depend mostly on where you live and the size participating in gardening and yard work, of your yard, as well as how much effort you children will naturally make observations want to put into the project. related to science If you are unable to compost in your yard, Additionally, home composting is one of you can still compost. I know of families who the most environmentally beneficial activities keep a worm bin under the kitchen sink. No, you and your family can do. Yard and food I’m not kidding. If the thought of worms waste takes up about 30% of the waste living under your sink is too much for you stream in the United States. Plus, organic to handle, the worm bin can go on a shaded Spring 2006 PAGE A–1 UNIT STUDY — Composting balcony, garage, or other area as long as the out human or pet excrement due to harmful temperature isn’t to hot or cold. bacteria. Also keep out diseased plants. Worm bins are easy and inexpensive to Finally, citrus peels and pine needles contain make. You purchase worms at your local natural chemicals that will slow down the nursery center, prepare a bin, add kitchen composting process. scraps and, every so often, have the children Here are some items that you can put into go through it. It makes wonderful organic compost. Straw, grass clippings, leaves, plant fertilizer. trimmings, spoiled fruits and vegetables or A worm compost needs four basic scraps, hair clippings, dryer lint from natural things: fibers, coffee grounds and filters, tea bags, 1. Carbon (newspaper) shredded newspaper, fur, feathers, shredded 2. Nitrogen (organic waste) or chipped branches. If you are worried about 3. Oxygen (air) raccoons or deer coming to feast on your open 4. Water (from your sink above) pile, bury the scraps when you add them. Add the worms and let them do their work. For more details in setting up a worm Creating Your Unit Study bin, see the Reading List and Websites. If you live in the suburbs and have a • Choose books for your children’s grade nice size yard, you can compost in a bin levels. or tumbler. Call your city or county office • As you read together, check out some to see if you can buy compost bins at a composting websites for further discount. You can also make them almost investigation. free (see Websites). Tumblers look nice and • Decide what kind of composting will work get a lot of hype, but they are expensive and best for your family. my experience is that • Have the children make a shopping list of they are not much needed supplies to get you started. more efficient than • Assign duties to children, such as watering, bins. turning and carrying scraps to the pile. If you have the • Choose activities to enhance your study. space to compost in the open, I encourage Activities you to do so. We have two open compost piles, one on the east side • Make posters displaying life, soil, and of the yard and one on the west side. We water cycles. alternate the use of these piles—while one is • Make a chart of items that can and cannot curing the other is feeding our gardens. go into the compost bin. • Investigate where the city takes your trash What Can Be Composted and how it is disposed. • Take a field trip to a water treatment Generally speaking, anything that was plant. once a growing plant can be composted, with • Research recycling options in your a few exceptions. So, the more important community. question is: what should not be placed into • Take the quiz at www.ciwmb.ca.gov/ a home compost pile. Stay away from greasy Kidstuff or create your own. food, dairy products, meat scraps and bones • Add composting-related words to your as these items will attract rodents. Keep vocabulary and spelling lists. PAGE A–2 Heart & Mind Composting — UNIT STUDY • Take a trash survey. See how much of your family’s trash is recyclable, reusable, or Directions: biodegradable. Yo u ’ll n e e d a n e w p la st ic • Look for references in the Catechism of flowerpot, one plastic flower, and the Catholic Church on the environment one new gardening trowel. (Creation), such as paragraphs 299, 341, To make the dirt: In a food 2415. processor or blender, process the • Older students can investigate the cookies until they resemble . . . dirt! moral implications of conservation, or Set aside. environmental extremism, and write a To make the mud: Mix cream theme paper. cheese and margarine together • Most importantly, encourage observation in a small bowl and set aside. In of the compost pile. Keep a journal of a medium bowl, combine pudding observations. with milk and let set a few minutes. Finally, tie this unit study together with Add the mixture of cream cheese a delicious compost-related dessert. See and margarine to pudding. Fold in the sidebar for a recipe for Incredible Dirt whipped topping. Cake. Putting it all together: In a God’s design is perfect—waste decays new, clean pot, starting with dirt, and gives rise to new life. It is a gift to be alternate layers of dirt and mud, able to share this part of God’s creation with adding a couple of gummi worms in children. each dirt layer. End with dirt on top. Add a few more gummi worms. Chill Maureen Wittmann is a homeschooling 3 or 4 hours. When ready to serve, mother of seven children. She is the author of insert flower and serve with a new For the Love of Literature (Ecce Homo Press) and co-editor of The Catholic Homeschool Companion (Sophia Institute Press). Check out her website at www.maureenwittmann.com. Reading List
Dirt Cake I found all of these books at my local
public library: Ingredients: Let It Rot! The Gardeners Guide to 20 oz. Oreos or other chocolate Composting by Stu Campbell. This is sandwich cookies the book that I used when I started 8 oz. softened cream cheese composting. Easy-to-read and informative for both adults and students. 1⁄4 c. margarine, softened 1 small package instant vanilla or Worms Eat My Garbage by Mary Appelhof. chocolate pudding A must-read if you want to explore the 3 c. cold milk possibility of setting up and maintaining 16 oz. Cool Whip or other whipped a worm composting system inside. It’s as topping easy as it looks. This little chapter book could be read by students of all ages. 1 package Gummi Worms
Spring 2006 PAGE A–3
UNIT STUDY — Composting Compost Critters, written and photographed by Bianca Lavies. Websites My boys loved the photos of the Instructions: Build a Compost Bin: www. icky bugs that came to visit mastercomposter.com/equip/buildbin. the author’s compost pile . Easy html read for grade school children. How to Make Compost: http:// Squirmy Wormy Composters by Bobbie compostguide.com/index.html Kalman and Janine Schaub. Learn all about those recycling wonders, School Composting: Journey to worms, as well as how to get started Forever : http://journeytoforever. vermicomposting. Grade school. org/edu_compost.html, Excellent site for learning about soil Re-Cycles by Michael Elsohn. Tells the composition. story of the soil cycle, water cycle, and what it means to decomposition City Farmer: www.cityfarmer.org/ and composting. Early grade school. wormcomp61.html, Lots of information about composting with red wiggler worms. An Ear thworm’s Life written and illustrated by John Himmelman. The Wonderful World of Composting: An interesting picture book for www.cce .cornell.edu/tompkins/ preschool and early grade school. ithacachildrensgarden/worm.html, Tells how to make a worm compost bin. Compost! Growing Gardens from Your Garbage by Linda Glaser. Lovely Kid’s Stuff About Waste Reduction: picture book about how your garbage www.ciwmb.ca.gov/Kidstuff/, Has an can be turned into fall’s harvest. online (or download) game to introduce Preschool or early grade school. the kids to vermicomposting. Fun! Wiggling Worms at Work (Let’s Read and Find Out Science Series) by Wendy Garbage Soup Pfeffer. Learn all about worms. A good read for preschool and early grade Combine chopped kitchen waste with school children. Very nice illustrations. equal amounts of water in the blender. Bury this soup round the outer edges Make an Earthworm Farm by Meredith of plants or place directly into a garden Costain (Little Green Readers Series). trench. Fill with soil and water well. How-to book for preschoolers. Seeds or transplants can be added immediately. A Catholic Homeschool Treasury by Rachel Mackson and Maureen Wittmann This “For God willed creation as book is now out of print, but if you a gift addressed to man, an own it or can borrow it, read my essay inheritance destined for and “Playing in the Dirt” which is related to entrusted to him.” composting and homeschool science. —Catechism of the Catholic Church, 299 PAGE A–4 Heart & Mind