By Michéle Desjardins
This year École des Sept-sommets, Rossland's little French school, has a lot to celebrate for Earth Day.
The school received an honourable mention for their community garden and worm-composting projects.
Here is the text from the online description of the school project:
At our school environment is important.
We recycle paper and juice containers, but we found that it was not enough. We then decided to start a project of vermi-compost.
In 2010 the association of parents of our school subsidized the purchase of a vermi-composter and red worms. In each class we have a container to collect organic waste that we feed our worms. A student is responsible to feed the worms every week.
Class M-1 is the collection of compost once or twice per year. This activity is very funny, because we have to separate the compost. We have the opportunity to observe well and find eggs that look like small pearls. In the spring we use this fertilizer in the wonderful community garden at our school.
The whole school looks after the garden for the last five years now. Grades 4-6 prepare the ground for our spring planting. Grades 2-3 plant seeds and everyone helps with the weeding.
In June and in the fall we harvest the fruits and vegetables. We enjoy it raw or in soup.
In 2011 we conducted an experiment to see if plants grow better with or without vermi-compost. The garden was divided into two parts, one with and one without compost. As you might have guessed the plants grown in the field with our super compost won handily.
In 2012 we even won three awards at the Fall Festival of Rossland. This year we have the same two collections of vermi-compost to put in our garden. Nothing is lost, nothing is created in our small French school.
The project submission can be viewed at the following link: http://2013.bcgreengames.ca/