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Vermicomposting

vermicomposting in schools

12 years ago

I was wondering if there were any teachers out here who have done vermicomposting in the school (lunch food)? If so, how do you do it? What kind of bins? Where do you have the bins? How do you collect the castings? What do you do with the castings? Thanks!

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Comments (5)

plumiebear
12 years ago
I'm not a teacher, but I have given some thought to this idea. My sister was involved with my niece's school recycling program and we considered how this might be done.

I'll start with the "issues". The kids would need to be trained to throw worm suitable scraps into a separate trash bin. Realistically, even with smart & disciplined kids, this will probably still mean someone will need to sort through this garbage.

You need to determine the amount of food scraps generated per week. You also need to have an idea of the types of food. Grains & breads are ok, but if you have too much relative to veggies & fruits it could be a problem. You will almost definitely need a pre-composting routine with multiple compost tumblers.

Most schools have funding limits (understatement) and worms are expensive. You need thousands of dollars worth of worms if you want to immediately start processing all of the food waste.

Fully enclosed and possibly ventilated flow-through bins are the easiest to maintain and harvest. In MI you may need to heat them in the winter...or at least provide a shed to shelter them. Harvesting castings from this system is fairly easy. You could use them in the school's gardens.

The person in charge of the school garden at my niece's school finally decided a large vermicomposting system would cost too much & require too much time to maintain. They opted for a couple of donated stacking bins that could be started with a few pounds of worms. The kids could still learn about worm composting. I think some classrooms also maintain their own small RM worm bin.

I don't want to discourage you. I think it's great that you are thinking about this. If you can get a grant, here's a system that would solve many of the issues:
https://www.yelmworms.com/large-scale-systems/

If you have parent volunteers with mechanical skills, such a bin could be built for a fraction of the cost.

Andrew
socks
12 years ago
I did it on a small scale in a blue Rubbermaid. When finished with lunch, the 3rd gr. kids put their scraps in the bin. Not all kids were interested, so there were not too many scraps. It was fun.
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The worm bin is still going strong. We're adding about a pound of scraps every other week. It's amazing how fast it disappears. The kids are amazed with the process. We can see see lots of castings beginning to appear. It amazes me that there is absolutely no smell whatsoever. We had one incident where the bin got very wet in the corner where we fed the worms on Friday before we left. The scraps were wetter items like tomatoes and cucumbers. We mixed some of the bedding down into the "goo" and within a day or two all had been righted. It amazes me how much the kids love the worms. If it was up to them, I think they'd have their hands in the box looking at the worms every day. They're settling for Fridays, when we check the bin to see if we need to add more food. I have no idea how long the whole composting process will take. I'm hoping to be able to harvest at least some castings by the end of May so that the kids can use some compost tea in the butterfly garden the principal is getting planted in our courtyard. We planted seeds the other day to donate to the school's garden. Well...gotta go to bed. Happy composting. Joyce
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The downside to worms and related areas is that it's not like math . Reason I say that is that if a person in Maine gives me (in Arizona) the a couple of the dimensions of a triangle I can give them all the info they will need to find the rest . Not so with worms . There seem to be no gurus . There are no places to find rock solid bet your boots on this sources of info . There's a lot "well , for me here in XXX we can do this or that" and so on . I have searched and am down to just a few "almost" sure fire methods to use worms . I am now getting ready to use euros to live in the soil in which I garden so their poop will help the soil and as they produce more than I need then I will sell them as bait . The produce will benefit me as well as a few bucks from anglers . It seems that raising worms will work but like the word says "it's WORK" . Start small and learn from your mistakes . A friend of mine had to get out of the biz because shipping costs ate him up . He was selling on E-bay and they demand overnight shipping on worms . I'm sure that if you ask enough people questions you will hear some stuff over and over . You can start with those answers and answer many of the others through trial and error . Keep your worms separate so one mistake does not kill them all . Experiment with small groups . This stifles growth at one end but in case of a catastrophy you are not starting over . It's a slow process but at the rate that worms reproduce you will eventually benefit from their sheer tanacity . I would think that 5 years is a reasonable time to give for this type of project . It's a long time , granted BUT I'm reminded of a girl I knew back east . I advised Nursing School . She said (and I paraphrase) "My God , I'm 40 years old . It will take 6 years since I work . I'll be 46 when I graduate."I replied "How old will you be in 6 years IF you don't do it ?" She is a retired RN and enjoying a GOOD retirement . Work it like a school project . Ask every question of every person . When I was younger I was a pilot . We had a little saying . "When I had 10 hours I didn't listen to anyone . When I had 100 hours I listened to SOME people . When I had 1000 hours I listened to EVERYONE." This is something that "might" support but will at least supplement you . The business will be YOU . It will succeed if you make it succeed and fail if you make it fail .
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socks
12 years ago
I did it on a small scale in a blue Rubbermaid. When finished with lunch, the 3rd gr. kids put their scraps in the bin. Not all kids were interested, so there were not too many scraps. It was fun.
kalantasgardens
12 years ago
Helped a teacher introduce vermicomposting to students for a subject.

It's going to be an on-going project to really instill this fun activity to a student's lifestyle in the years to come..
african
12 years ago
Cheapest way for schools is to use the traditional stacked tire worm farm

Here is a link that might be useful: traditional worm farming

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