Worms are great educators! A worm bin is wonderful addition to the classroom to teach biology, ecology and soil science as well as to help you meet school recycling goals.

Classroom Worm Project
Recommended for grades 3, 4, and 5, although other grade levels can be accommodated with some adjustments. Your students will be elbow-deep into worms with this exciting hands-on worm breeding project. This project is the first step for full-on school lunchroom vermicomposting. It is presented in two separate sessions:

In the first one-hour Bin Start Session, your students will create and populate worm bins and learn the principles and practices of vermicomposting. Each classroom starts with two or more 10-gallon worm bins, each bin with a 1/4 pound worm colony.

Students will care for their worms for 5-6 months, feeding kitchen/lunchroom food waste and shredded paper waste from the office. They will weigh, measure, describe and document the process in a Food Log.

At the end of the 5-6 month cycle, we return for a Harvest Session. Students learn the harvesting techniques and extract the two products they have created – more worms and a batch of vermicast. The growing worm colony can be re-bed in additional bins to pass to other classes, moved to bigger systems, or sold for fundraising. Vermicast may be used in school gardens or landscaping, processed for sale, or used to conduct soil science experiments.

Maximum 25 students per class.

Fees: Per classroom, $350 presentation fee covers both sessions. Materials: $70 for each bin and worm colony.

Classroom Presentation
One-hour classroom presentations give students an interactive introduction in worm science basics and care and feeding of a classroom worm colony. Includes Mini-Bin and starter colony of worms. Each class receives the Mini-Bin owner's manual and "Recycle with Earthworms" stickers. Grade level appropriate, preschool to 6th grade, maximum 25 students. Fee $150.

Funding School Worms
Funding up to $500 per year per school is available for Classroom Projects, Presentations, and other school worm recycling projects through the City & County Recycling Office. Go to their website at www.opala.org and scroll down to Recycling Teaching Partners to download the Recycling Project Proposal form. On-going, no deadline.

A Environmental Education Mini-Grant up to $1,000 is available from the Kokua Hawaii Foundation that can be used to purchase worms, worm bins - including the Can-O-Worms system - or teaching services. Click here to get more information and an application for the 2009-2010 school year.