 Before
- click to enlarge. Our compost learning center was built through
the combined efforts of Girl
Scout Troop #7551, the Eagle Scout project of
Ryan
Dees and a grant from the Hamilton
County Solid Waste Management District. The compost center is
the site of our hot compost pile. This is where we compost a combination
of garden waste, leaves and some leftovers from the cafeteria
for teaching purposes.
Our program is too large for this system to hold our
garden material or to create the amount of compost we need. We use a
cold composting
system to supply compost for our gardens.
The three-bin system is an excellent
way, though, for students to create, observe, a nd monitor compost.
Responsibilities can be assigned to classes for feeding and maintaining the
system and recording visual, odor, and temperature observations from start to
finish of decomposition.
In a three-bin compost system, one
of the end bins is used to collect garden waste. When the material begins
to decompose, it is transferred to the middle bin. The middle bin is used
to hold partially decomposed material for decomposition to continue. The
third bin is used to hold the finished compost before transferring it to the
gardens. In the photo above, the front slats of the bins are removable to
make turning and removing compost easy.
Composting
as a teaching tool.
Additional information:
From the University of
California Cooperative Extension |
