Growing Vegetables and Vermiposting With our Grade 12 Friends: The neXtChapter ELP

Earth Day Play Dough Fun

Part II of the 21C initiative aims to:

1. Participate in a project which involves "knowledge construction"    NOT "knowledge reproduction".
2. Solve a "real life" problem.

This time, we extended our partnership with not only Mrs. Mieta's class at St. John Paul II but also with Mr. Eddy's Gr. 12 Geography class!  Mr. Eddy's class started a Vermipost (worm farm) for us and his students posted a video "How to Create Worm Verm". Ms. Mieta's class started lettuce greens and other 'salad vegetables' in environmentally friendly paper pots and she also posted videos on "How to Make Paper Pots".  She dropped the materials off with a portable greenhouse to help the growing process.

Our Grade 12 Friends from St. John Paul II

Checking out our Salad Veggie Plants

The Vermiposter (Worm Hotel)

We are continuing to focus on the inquiry questions:

Can we grow other food to eat?
Can we grow food indoors?
We have added some questions:
Can we use pots that are not plastic?
Can we make our own compost?

We came up with some possible If/Then statements:

1. If we grow salad greens, then we can eat them.
2. If we make a worm home, then we can make our own compost.
3. If we keep worms in our classroom, then we can learn about how they make food for plants.
4. If we look at worms, we can study how they eat, move, grow and reproduce.
5. If we use a greenhouse light, then we can grow food without the sun.

This project meets Full-Day Kindergarten Expectations on many levels: (Science/Math/Language:

Math: Measure and compare length, using non-standard units (through measuring how much our plants and worms grow)

Science: Demonstrate an understanding of the natural world and the need to care and respect our environment; conduct simple investigations using simple inquiry skills; living and non-living things; make predictions and explorations.

Language: Beginning writing and Oral Language (communicating by asking questions).

It also deals with the real-world problem of growing food for consumption and eating healthy.

As a classroom, we watched Ms. Mieta's and Mr. Eddy's class describe how to set up the Vermipost and vegetables and how to care for them when we got them. I also did a knowledge building session on what the children thought about what they watched. 

The Videos are Posted Here (Click on the headings):
How to Make a Paper Pot
How to Make Worm Verm

On Earth Day, Mrs. Switzer spoke to the children about garbage and 'where it goes' when we throw it out. The students were wondering what we could do to help the world stay clean. We asked the custodian to save our lunch garbage and Mrs. Switzer sorted it out to show the children the proper place to throw all of our garbage. 

Sorting our Lunch Garbage

In preparation for the Vermipost that we were getting, we decided to save some of our food garbage to feed the worms. We learned that worms eat food scraps and then they "poop" out good stuff for our garden called compost.

Ms. Mieta Showed us How to Take Care of the Vermiposter
We have to feed them food scraps every 1-2 days and check and make sure that it is moist in there. If not, we have to spray water.

We investigated and measured the worms using paper clips. We recorded some things we noticed.

"When I touched the worm it moved; I know my earth worm is living because it moved".

Through our reading, we found out that worms are both male and female and that they carry their eggs in a sack called a "saddle". We found one ready to lay eggs soon.

We have to water our plants everyday and keep the light on during the day. We began to record observations about our plants.

"I am growing yellow chard. It needs water. It is green".

Our Next Steps
Our inquiry into worms and plants will continue over the next month. We hope to get many questions and answers as we investigate.

In the middle of May, we are taking our salad greens and veggies to Loblaws to visit the Nutritionist, Maxine Silberg.  She will teach us about how the grocery store gets vegetables, and how to make a healthy salad! 

When we return to school, we will make paper pots and plant the seeds that Ms. Mieta's class gave to us.  We hope to get greens in time to take home to our family gardens.

Ms. Mieta and Mr. Eddy will return to St. Dunstan to get our vermiposter after about a month.  They will then use the compost from the worms to help with their indoor greenhouse at St. John Paul II.

Stay tuned for our next post: Hatching Chick Eggs and Butterfly Eggs!

On May 4th, we will be getting our incubator and eggs from Green Acres Farm and our butterfly eggs will be here soon as well.