The Miraculous Garden Magic of Worms

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 Kids love the flavors, colors and crunch of fresh vegetables – and it turns out that worms do, too!

 

For this project, IACP Kids teamed up with two great Chicago area organizations: Purple Asparagus and the Academy for Global Citizenship. Our event, which showcased the fun, flavors and importance of healthy eating, took place at Kendall College (a local culinary school).

 

 

Kids ranged in age from 7 to 11 years old, with the older kids stepping in to help out the younger ones. They were assisted by a group of culinary professionals from IACP, while other IACP members observed from the gallery seating, taking notes to bring back to schools and cooking groups around the country.

 

The kids got the fun started by working with ZeBot Zebra and our other striped mascots to personalize the aprons the junior chefs/environmentalists would wear throughout the event.

 

 

Next on the menu: a lesson in vermiculture by the Academy for Global Citizenship.

 

We learned how worms can eat the leftover scraps from the healthy ingredients we use for cooking, using their wormy digestive systems to create a near-magical fertilizer.

 

The worms live in a bin filled with shredded paper or other biodegradable bedding. You feed them by adding scraps of food waste (like non-acidic vegetables and fruits, grains, potatoes and eggshells).

 

 

The worms' favorite recipe consists of the food scrap buffet, paired with some of the paper (or other biodegradable) bedding. After digesting this fabulous feast, the worms excrete nutrient-rich castings (aka "worm poop").

 

After a few months, you add the castings to the well-decomposed bedding. The result of the combined human/worm efforts is vermicompost, considered one of the richest soil improvements around.  Since worms consume up to 50% of their own body weight in food every day, that means they can make a LOT of fertilizer.

 

Farmers and gardens use the vermicompost to nourish all sorts plants—from flowers and bushes to fruit trees and garden vegetables.

 

Vermicompost bins are good for the earth, too. We learned that about 30% of a family's garbage is organic material, like veggie and fruit peels, bread crusts, egg shells and coffee grounds.

 

If you compost this organic waste, your community won't need as many trucks to haul garbage (so there's less fuel consumption and less pollution)—and you help conserve space in landfills for the non-recyclable stuff that really needs to be there.

 

After our lesson, the kids got to make their own pet "vermiculture" worms by stuffing old, clean nylon stockings with shredded newspaper, then gluing on googly eyes. Since our zebra mascots have hooves, the kids were kind enough to assist them in crafting their worm buddies (all named ZeWorm).

 

 

 

 

To complete a sustainable circle, the kids had a taste-and-nutrition lesson from the experts at Purple Asparagus, then made their own healthy snacks using fruits and veggies would later be fed to the hardworking red wiggler worms in local vermiculture compost bins.

 

For more info on how to have an event like this for kids at your school,

please contact IACP Kids co-chair Laura Martin Bacon at iacpkids@gmail.com.