Students get up close and personal with wrigglers
By Tracy Dermott
What is wriggly, made mostly out of water, afraid of the light
and can eat a ton of garbage every year?
About a thousand worms, said Cathy Nesbitt of Cathy's Crawly
Composters. Nesbitt was at Tecumseth South Public School Feb.
4 to show the kids how to make an indoor composting station, something
they will be doing in their school to reduce the amount of waste
going into the garbage.
Shouts of "cool, gross, gooey," and "fishing" could be heard
in the gym after Nesbitt asked what the group of kids from Grades
3, 4, and 5 thought of worms.
"I thought worms were icky when I first started," Nesbitt told
the group of approximately 70 kids. "But they have five hearts,
so you have to love them."
Nesbitt showed the kids how to shred newspapers into strips before
putting it into the composter for the worms to eat.
"Worms require carbon and nitrogen to live," she explained. "The
carbon comes from the old newspapers, straw and leaves while the
nitrogen comes from food scraps."
Nesbitt, who has been doing composting for over 10 years, got
into worm farming and composting when a friend asked her to look
after a crawly composter while on vacation.
"I didn't want to touch them, but then it was kind of cool,"
she told the crowd.
She said started collecting lunch scraps from the lunchroom at
her office in Toronto and bringing them to her Bradford home.
"My whole thing is saving this stuff from the landfill,"
For more information or to contact Nesbitt visit her web site
at www.cathyscomposters.com.
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