I am a science junkie. Sometimes I feel like I love a good science project more than my kids do. That’s not entirely true, they also love to do experiments. It is something that I am constantly looking for and researching. How can I bring these awesome concepts to life for them to experiment and learn from. Well, this year I decided to try an indoor garden during the winter. I try this every winter and am not always successful. Trial and error is my middle name. This year the kids got involved in the planting and care taking of the plants. We’ve planted green beans, tomatoes, broccoli, and peas. I’ve bought grow lights to help them along, and studied up on their individual needs. It has been a great experience for the boys to watch their seeds turn to seedlings and now beautiful healthy plants.
In our backyard we have a compost bin. We primarily use it during the warmer months for obvious reasons. I love the compost to use in my garden. The kids don’t really get to see what is happening inside of the compost bin as it is enclosed. They know to toss their apple cores and carrot tops in and they really don’t think much of it past that. With the addition of the indoor garden this winter, it made perfect sense to use this opportunity to show the boys what is happening inside of the compost bin. We also don’t need a lot of compost to add to our inside plants, so container composts work perfectly. With an indoor compost container we are able to watch as the waste is turned into nutrient rich soil and then deposit it into our plants.
You can take this experiment a step further by making one compost composed of organic matter to compost (vegetables, banana peels, etc.). In another compost container put an item such as a paper cup. Watch and record the length of time it takes for the soil to compost each item. Then you could even add a plastic type item to the compost to show how these items are not biodegradable. It is a great lesson for kids to see first hand what is happening in our landfills. What a great teaching opportunity it is to help them to understand the importance of recycling and reusing items. It has opened up great conversations on what we can do as a family to reduce our footprint. Then, have the kids brainstorm ideas on what could be done to improve the situation in the world. It brings such a needed awareness to our young people, and a great science experiment all in one!
For this project you will need:
Plastic container with a lift off top.
Soil
Water
Natural Materials (leaves, banana peels, grass, etc.)
On your plastic container you will want to make some ventilation holes. We put a screen top on ours as we had some screen left over. I just hot glued it to the top of the lid where I cut a hole out of it. You could just as easily poke holes in your lid, or the sides of the container. The ventilation is very important as it helps to speed up the decomposition process.
Fill your container about 3/4 full of soil. Add your natural materials to the soil. You will want to add about a 1/4 cup of water to the container. Shake it up! Then set your compost in a place that gets natural light or where the sun shines in. We set ours on our greenhouse shelves of our indoor garden. A window sill would work perfectly. You would repeat this process for as many bins as you want to use. If you are adding inorganic matter to compost or biodegradable items, you may add them now. Just remember to shake it up.
Every other day you will need to add a bit more water to the compost container and give it a shake or stir it. The agitation is what gets the process moving and allows bacteria and fungi to develop. You may start to notice a fluffy white fungus forming on the top of the compost. This is nothing to be concerned about. In fact this means that the fungus-like bacterial responsible for composting are present in your container. Microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi are part of a normal composting process and responsible for the decomposition of waste. Once this happens, you are on your way. Just remember to add water and stir it up on a regular basis. This is also an opportune time to teach about what fungi is, and the importance of it to our environment.
The benefit of the clear container is the ability to see how much has decomposed when you stir it up. Eventually the containers with organic and biodegradable materials will all be decomposed and you will be left with a rich dark soil. This is a great time to explain how all of those nutrients are now infused into the soil. When this soil is fed to our plants, they are also able to grow healthy and strong with these additional nutrients. Like a multi-vitamin that we take to stay healthy.
By keeping a log of how long it takes certain items to decompose, this can be an experiment that extends over a long period of time. This gives your child the chance to see nature in action. It will also be fun for them to plant a seed and use their compost. It’s always fun to get your hands dirty, and if you can learn something at the same time, well, that’s a win for me!