First time digging up the kitchen waste in the compost hole.
"I went for a garbage walk with my mom and my scooter and the big bag was attached to my scooter, that's where the bag came from." J. K.
I was so pleased to see the learning being driven by students and extended beyond the school walls.
I felt this was a perfect authentic opportunity for students to observe the type of garbage that J. K. and F. D. found and sort it into the correct containers.
As I pulled out item by item out of the bag, students had some amazing things to say:
"Straws are bad for birds! Their beaks can get stuck in them." M. S.
"Bands are bad for dogs and other animals." F. D.
"Wow! The recycling is overflowing!" E. E.
At this time, O. S. made a great suggestion!
"Let's make a tally!"
Once we were done sorting the items in the bag, I asked students what they thought the tally told us?
"Recycling is the most and kitchen waste is the least." A. F.
"There is still a lot of garbage." C. D.
"If we put everything in the garbage more air will get polluted and get really stinky." O. S.
"The landfills are getting bigger if we don't sort!" J. K.
"When I go to school and I bring plastic bags I take them home and my mommy and daddy reuse them for something." P. I.
I decided to ask the class the question:
How much garbage would we have if we didn't sort it?
I was curious to see how they would solve this problem. A few students decided to take on this challenge and share their solution with the class.
On Friday May 8th, our compost tally chart told us that our kitchen waste has been in our compost hole for 25 days! As we have done every Friday, a group of interested students went out with a shovel and we dug up our kitchen waste to make some observations.
We noticed changes happening in our compost hole! We will continue to dig up and make observations. Fingers crossed we will have some rich soil soon!
During the first time we dug up our compost hole, excitement filled the air as we stumbled upon a few worms at the bottom of our hole! And so began a small investigation about worms.
The following are pictures of the worm investigation documentation which is also placed in the classroom for our students and visitors to see!
Having had a conversation with students about how long our worms have been in our classroom, everyone agreed they needed to be placed back in their natural habitat. Back they went exactly where we found them, at the bottom of our compost hole!
"Now they have food! They can eat our rotten food!" R. S.
Love the passion for inquiry here! The best way to learn is to experience and the very best questions have answers that also end with a question mark as well. Keep it up!
ReplyDeleteThat’s incredible dear!! Before my wedding I was a teacher at the Phoenix kindergarten. I used to organize such events in the class. I also made the earth caring classroom community and my little kiddos learned loads of things from that. Anyway, thanks a lot for this post!
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