Waikiki Worm Co.: Can-O-Worms

School Worms Perionyx excavatus has made an incredible impact on Oahu school campuses! Our unassuming annelids have successfully WORMED their way into science studies, recycling efforts, gardening, fundraising and media projects all over the island. We hope the collection of stories below will spark creative ideas, inspire confidence, and encourage more teachers, principals, parents and students to get involved with worms. Waikiki Worm can help to get you started on your wormy adventures! Click on Workshops & Presentations to find out about our school programs and funding sources.
Alice Boll and her classmates classed up Mini-Bins with charming original artwork. Students created presentation materials to tell the story of vermicomposting. Shade Au and Akio Abdul-Adal compare bean plants grown with and without vermicast.	Waialae Elementary Public Charter School Members of both custodial and lunchroom staff at Waialae School were already tinkering with vermicomposting when the 3rd grade teachers realized that composting worms would make an excellent addition to soil science studies as well as to the school's recycling efforts. Within a year, worms were hard at work fundraising, too! In July 2005, Waialae School sponsored and hosted the very first island-wide Teachers' Worm Workshop, attended by 20 educators. Supportive Waialae CEO Wendy Lagareta participated along with the school's 3rd grade staff. From these few original Mini-Bins, worms grew and prospered at Waialae School. Colonies were split until 24 bins were thriving. The next harvest produced 24 starter colonies and a mountain of vermicast. In April, worm bins were constructed and decorated, vermicast packaged, signage and displays designed and painted, an instruction booklet written and published, and a pictorial presentation notebook compiled – an impressive collaboration between students, teachers, and parents. The 24 worm bin starter kits and vermicast were ready to sell at the school's Fun Fair. The 3rd graders' worm booth at Waialae School's Fun Fair was truly a wonder to behold! Anyone interested in purchasing a $20 worm composting kit was treated to a very professional presentation that explained the worm bin building process, worm care, feeding, harvesting, and the virtues of vermicast. Congratulations to Waialae School 3rd graders and their teachers for leading the way in worm learning and enterprise!
Science teacher Bryan Silver has developed worm beds ideal for rooting. Mr. Silver plans to modify this mainland mechanical vermicast separator.	Kalani High School Kalani High science teacher Bryan Silver got a handful of worms in a little plastic-box starter kit in November of 2004 to add to his extensive science lab menagerie. As of April 2006, Mr. Silver proudly cultivates 44 square feet of wooden outdoor worm beds, bursting with fat, robust Perionyx excavatus. He is the first on Oahu to explore school vermiculture on a larger scale. Unfortunately, his original plan of vermicomposting lunchroom waste could not be realized. The lunchroom receives all meals packaged, he says, so no food is prepared on campus. No one is willing to separate the garbage so it just gets dumped out. Instead, Times Supermarket kindly donates 100 pounds of waste produce weekly to feed KHS's worm colony. Mr. Silver is now concentrating on vermicast production for rooting plants for Kalani's hydroponics program. Everyone's challenge – once past the Mini-Bin stage – is how to separate the worms from the cast. Hand-harvesting is very time-consuming and laborious. By building a long, narrow worm bed, he found that if he feeds and covers the worms on one side for several months, then moves food and cover to the other side, the worms migrate to the fresh food source and leave their processed material behind. Mr. Silver then does his rooting directly in pure vermicast right in the worm bed! This has worked well for ti logs, sugar cane, and bamboo, stimulating strong root systems and in the ti, numerous spikes. He is also working on modifying a mechanical vermicast separator based on one he ordered from the mainland. Our worms prefer a much wetter bed than the mainland redworms, so new engineering will be necessary to spin off our moisture-laden cast. Many people will be interested in such a mechanical separator when he gets it to work! Thanks, Mr. Silver, for doing research and development – we will all benefit from your efforts!
	Lanikai Elementary Public Charter School Click below to see a delightful two-minute vermi-video created by 6th graders at Lanikai School! This movie was a winner of the 2006 Island Movie Award for the category Environmental Concerns/Social Issues, produced by talented students under the supervision of teacher Parker Sawyer. Click Here to See Video