Inside the Lower School science room, Ms. Theis and Ms. Jiang’s section of Class 1 sat quietly in two groups. Those with Associate science teacher Rowen Halpin were settled around a table examining a large poster board displaying the sentence ‘What can decompose?’ while the second group sat on the floor beside Head teacher Mary Ostrover and a black bin filled with soil.
Ms. Ostrover prompted the whole class to reflect on their previous studies of worms (parts of the body, habitat, etc.) and noted that, today, they would get an up-close inspection of the worms in their natural state.
“Decompose is an important word,” Ms. Halpin said to her small group. “Can anyone tell me what it means?”
One student offered that it’s a word for when something can break down, particularly, when something from the Earth goes back into it.
Ms. Halpin confirmed her answer and began to pass out clear CD cases filled with bits of soil. “Worms help break down organic matter by eating it and when it passes through them, the soil becomes rich with nutrients.”
Pointing to the poster board, Ms. Halpin noted the two headings underneath their over-arching question. Organic matter, she explained, is ‘natural’ and can break down while Non-Organic cannot break down properly or decompose. Today, their job was to inspect the soil inside of the CD case to decipher which materials fall into each category.
Magnifying glasses in hand, the scientists began to investigate, writing down their observations on green sticky notes. Each scholar thoughtfully chose where to place their ideas, thus, sticky notes with the words leaf, egg, lemon and worm began to emerge under the ‘Organic’ heading. ‘Non-Organic’ displayed astute suggestions of tape, foam, string and plastic.
Meanwhile, the group of friends with Ms. Ostrover peered into the bucket of soil in search of worms. “There are around 300 worms in here,” their teacher noted. “All underground!”
With a colorful array of shovels, students took turns plunging into the soil. As they dug, they too, found organic materials that the worms could help decompose. “I found a banana peel!” one student exclaimed.
“Worms come up when it rains but then they want to go home! They use their bristles — do you remember that word? — to pull the food with them,” Ms. Ostrover said. When the students discovered a worm, they would gently place it onto the top layer of soil and watch in awe as it quickly began to bury itself back beneath the dirt.
Once everyone had a chance to dig, Ms. Ostrover turned their attention to two objects, one on each side of the bin. “Do you see that plastic?” she asked. “I put that there on my first day at Chapin, back in August, but it’s still there!”
Moving to the opposite side, she pointed to a small rotting morsel and said, “I put this apple in here a few days ago and it’s almost gone!”
She underscored that plastic can’t decompose and that’s one of the reasons why Chapin encourages community members to use less of it when possible. “Think about ways that we can recycle more at Chapin,” encouraged Ms. Ostrover.
After the groups switched places, they came back together as a class with Ms. Ostrover noting that it was time for the worms to rest.
With their poster board now taped in a central location for all to see, Ms. Ostrover pointed to a sticky note under Non-Organic that read “Rocks.”
“This one is very tricky,” she stated. “But rocks are actually organic! Worms might not eat them, but they break into teeny tiny pieces and become soil or sand on a beach!” (She shared that their next unit of study happens to be rocks and they’ll learn all about this process.)
The teachers then posed a final question for the class: “What can Class 1 do to recycle during lunch?”
After the class-wide discussion, several ideas littered the board: bringing peels to the class compost bin, recycling food that we don’t eat, and separating food from its plastic container among them.
“We can use plastic to make things during science class!” Ms. Halpin said. One student also suggested bringing leftover carrots, tomatoes and cucumbers for Roosevelt (the LS Guinea Pig and class pet) to eat.
The entire first grade will take turns gathering these materials in their respective homerooms, helping to facilitate this important recycling initiative.
