Composting at the Preschool
Connecting Art, Science and Lunch to Sustainability
Photo Essay by Kate Auger
While Preschool students are feasting on their edamame, spaghetti and PB&Js, there is a set of small invertebrates enjoying their own fine dining across the hallway in Preschool science teacher Dr. Theresa Shebalin’s classroom.
After a lesson about tadpoles and bacteria acting as decomposers in water, she quietly asks if students remember what is in an unassuming gray plastic tote. They begin to wiggle in their seats, craning for a glimpse of what is inside. Their excitement overrides the instructions to wait patiently. Shebalin digs around in the bin, bringing with her not only a beautiful and rich compost, but also the champions who created it — worms.
While the worms fly via Air Shebalin from the compost bin to the class carpet, they are inspected and observed on their quick vacation with curious eyes and a will of steel to not touch the slinky creatures. The worms — not the students — break down fruits and vegetable scraps and with the help of microorganisms create a rich soil amendment, ready to give nutrients back to the earth. This vermicomposting process in the classroom is the perfect model for students to visualize decomposition in a producer-consumer-decomposer ecosystem. The rest of Durham Academy’s food waste is processed by CompostNow, which uses a commercial composting process, allowing food scraps of all kinds to be repurposed.
“One of the most important things any individual can do to minimize their contribution to climate change is to compost their food waste. (Sending food waste to the landfill results in methane emissions, and methane is much more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.) By practicing the right way to compost, DA's Preschool students are learning a lifelong skill that they can share with the adults in their lives who also need to have that skill but probably weren't taught it in school.”
Dr. Theresa Shebalin
Preschool Science Teacher
The sounds of snipping scissors provide the soundtrack as students in Preschool art and cooking teacher Elizabeth McLeod’s classroom craft their next masterpiece — a fearsome creature composed of scrap paper and marker, a toothy green crocodile. Students pull all hues of greens and blues from supply bins of torn and cut paper and strategically decide where to glue this predator’s vertical pupils. There’s something else they consider in their crafting: Is this compostable?
Repetition is essential in art; repeating colors, patterns and ideas create effective compositions. At the Preschool, repetition is carried through to art materials as well, with artists posing the question, “Is this compostable?” for each object they plan to throw in the bin. Yes, that paper can go in the bin. No, not if it has sparkles. Some items are questionable, like used tissues, which students learn can be composted, but not recycled. Achoo!
“Preschool students are just beginning to learn that all living things have a role to play in their homes and that every organism's role is important for the functioning of the ecosystem as a whole. Based on their lived experiences, it's pretty straightforward for them to understand that plants make their own food and in turn become food for animals that cannot produce their own food. But the idea of decomposers breaking down waste to create nutrients for new plants is usually outside of their lived experience, so vermicomposting in our classroom helps make that idea a little less abstract.”
Shebalin
After art and science classes comes a favorite time of the day for many Preschoolers. It’s not necessarily lunch itself — more so a sorting game. With Shebalin’s help, students carefully sift through their finished meals to identify what they should take home, what can be composted and how (either in the vermicomposting tote or the CompostNow bin), what can be recycled, and what is destined for the landfill. Edamame shells? Compost. Aluminum foil? Recycling. Chicken tender? Compost. Styrofoam? Landfill. If you don’t see clear identifiers on disposable utensils, then they can’t be composted. Shebalin encourages students to look for language that confirms the product can be commercially composted or ready to throw into a backyard compost bin, like the letters BPI (Biodegradable Product Institute) and CMA (Compost Manufacturing Alliance). Sorting the wrong items in compost can cause production and environmental problems. When in doubt, it is better to throw it out.
“I will always remember the first time one of my kindergartners brought me food waste from home to add to our school bin. She presented it to me on a Monday morning with tremendous joy, as though it were a birthday gift. I can only imagine the conversation that must have taken place at home in order for her to be able to bring in a weekend's worth of food scraps to school! (And I'll take them any time!) At the same time, I love meeting grandparents who are eager to tell me what their grandchild has taught them about composting.”
Shebalin