Roll up your sleeves and get a little dirty with this elementary and middle school compost lesson. All you need is a large plastic container, a couple old newspapers, some organic waste, and a few hundred worms and you're ready to start composting in your classroom.

Concepts

carbon footprints, carbon emissions, ecological footprints, environmental stewardship, the environment, composting, conservation, decomposition, ecosystems

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Additional Tags

compost, carbon footprint, conservation, environmentalism, decomposition, ecosystem, science

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Instructional Ideas

• Include this lesson in a life science unit on ecosystems or the carbon cycle
• Before and/or after creating the compost bin, teach students about the process of decomposition
• Create a classroom job associated with maintaining the class compost bin
• Investigate the biodegradability of different materials by placing them in the compost bin and observing the effects

Classroom Considerations

• Use the resulting black gold in a school garden or offer it to parents with gardens at home
• Provide a container in the cafeteria for collecting organic waste from students' lunches

Pros

• A list of key vocabulary and definitions is included with the lesson
• Significant background information about decomposition is provided to support the teaching of this lesson

Cons

• Lesson does not explicitly address teaching student's about decomposition
• The purchase of worms is required for this science investigation

Common Core

L.4.4.a L.4.6 L.5.4.a L.5.6 L.6.4.a L.6.6 L.7.4.a L.7.6 L.8.4.a L.8.6