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J.A. Laird starts composting program
Invermere’s J.A. Laird Elementary School has a new school-wide composting program.
The Grade 5 students in Ms. Gauthier’s class have been working on an inquiry project since Earth Day (April 22), in order to get composting working in their school.
The students have been going Beyond Recycling with Wildsight’s environmental educator Kim Urbaniak since October, studying the waste, water and energy impacts of their lifestyles. Recently, they got a chance to travel to Cranbrook to see the first-hand what happens to waste generated here in the valley.
Regional District of East Kootenay’s (RDEK) Loree Duczek guided the students through the Materials Recycling Facility, Bottle Processing Plant, and Landfill. Students thought the “Wall-E” bottle crushing machine was really cool, but were quite surprised to see that landfills don’t allow materials, even organics, to break down, noticing that “at the Cranbrook landfill there was 60 feet of garbage!”
One student was concerned about our society’s legacy asking “how people in the future will think of us?”
Back in the classroom, the students decided to tackle their piece of the waste problem by starting up a school-wide composting program. In the fall, after first learning about the impacts of our high waste, high-consumption lifestyles, the students got a vermicompost bin for their classroom. But it wasn’t long before they noticed the constraints of indoor worm composting in their class: its limited size, the many things which can’t be composted this way, and the fruit fly outbreaks if you aren’t careful! Even so, they realized composting isn’t hard, and to celebrate Earth Day, they kicked off their school-wide composting project.
The Beyond Recycling students began their project with a sharing circle, where everything the students know and want to know was shared amongst each other. Over the next several weeks, the class used the sharing circle results and studied fruit flies, worms, how to compost, why to compost, and types of compost systems.
The culmination of the Earth Day project was J.A. Laird’s first composting fair on June 14.
Ms. Gauthier’s class presented their work to the whole school in hopes of dramatically reducing their waste. Classes cycled through the groups, learning everything they need to know about composting in the school, and playing some exciting games helping them remember what to do. Dr. Compost, Capture the Compost, and worm trivia were definitely hits! As Ms. Gautheir said, “the fair was a success and students really enjoyed it!”
In addition, Ms. Gauthier has acquired a very large, dual-compartment tumbler system for the school.
Wildsight wishes to recognize the additional generous support of the Columbia Basin Trust, Government of Canada, BC Hydro, Fortis BC, Regional District of the Central Kootenay, WC Kitchen Foundation and Waste Management Inc.
Lead image: J.A. Laird Elementary School Grade 5 students kicking off their composting research by sharing what they already know about composting. Photos submitted
Wildsight
