Featured Activity

Composter Can (from Eco-Fun by David Suzuki & Kathy Vanderlinden)

Don’t toss your veggie peels - compost them! Composting not only uses up a lot of garbage but helps gardens bloom, too. If you don’t already have a composter at home, here’s how to make one.

What you need:

• A plastic garbage can, with a top
• Garden soil
• Grass clippings and dry leaves
• Kitchen scraps such as vegetable and fruit peelings, crushed eggshells, coffee grounds, and tea bags (no meat, fish, bones, or dairy products, since they attract animals such as rodents and raccoons)
• A long stick for stirring
• Optional: soil animals (for example, red worms, sow bugs)
  

What you do:
1. Remove the bottom of the can.

2. Drill some holes in the side of the garbage can.

3. Find a convenient, sunny spot outside not too close to a wall. Push the can firmly down into the soil. If the soil is too hard, cut a trench for the can with a trowel.

4. Put a thin layer of garden soil on the bottom of the can. Add some yard waste and then your kitchen scraps. To speed up the rotting process, shred or chop up the scraps. Add another layer of grass or leaves and finish with a layer of garden soil. Add the soil animals if you’re using them.

5. Stir the compost. Add a sprinkle of water if it’s too dry or add some soil if it’s too wet. Keep it just damp. Put the top on.

6. Now you have somewhere to put your food scraps. Every time you add some, toss in more grass cuttings and soil. Stir every few days.

7. When your composter is about ¾ full, stop adding to it and just let it work. In a few weeks you should have some rich, dark compost for your garden or houseplants. Or give it to a neighbour or friend.

What’s Going On?
Bacteria, fungi, worms, and other "decomposers" in the soil break down organic matter and turn it into food for new plants.

The type of foods we eat - and where we buy them from - has a big effect on nature.  Here are some activities to help you learn more about how food comes from the earth to our table...

Learn about the water cycle
http://kidzone.ws/water/index.html

Conduct a water pollution experiment
www.csiro.au/scientriffic/HTMLs/sfc_pollution.htm

Worms help to recycle our food?! You can start "vermicomposting" today!
www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/worms.htm