The Worm Cafe - Review

Whole Earth, Spring, 1999 by Karen Van Epen

THE WORM CAFE Mid-Scale Vermicomposting of Lunchroom Wastes

Binet Payne. 1999; 182 pp. Flower Press. $34 postpaid from Worm Digest (see access).

Want to capture forty kids' attention while teaching them about resource recovery? Try worms. In-class vermicomposting will miraculously turn your lunch leftovers into a garden bonanza. Since everyone is fascinated by worms, your group will absorb biology, ecology, and soil science as they learn construction, problem-solving and organizing skills. This is hands-on learning at its dirty-fingered best.

Worms Eat Our Garbage is a transdisciplinary curriculum for grades four through eight, with numerous ideas for projects and activities related to the classroom worm bin. The Worm Cafe takes the concept several steps further, into community recycling. This book relates the experiences of the Laytonville, California, students who in 1987 decided to recycle the lunchroom wastes of the town's elementary, middle, and high schools. The steps of this successful program are detailed right up to late 1998, with all the practical advice you'll need to set up a similar project at a school near you. (You don't have to be a student or a student's parent to accomplish this.)

Curious about the life cycles of the easy-to-overlook tiny critters that surround and support you? Squirmy Wormy Composters presents big color pictures of worm life so amazing they could be from Uranus. These great illustrations accompany a simple introduction to vermicomposting for the early grades.

"A cocoon forms on the clitellum of each worm. The cocoon comes off the worm over its head. As the worm backs out of the cocoon, the cocoon picks up eggs and sperm from special openings in the worm's skin.

Inside the cocoon, baby worms are formed from the eggs of one worm and the sperm of another. After three weeks, two or three tiny worms will wiggle out of the cocoon. --SQUIRMY WORMY COMPOSTER

"I am not sure why we vermicomposted less food waste the second year. Students analyzed the data and suggested the difference was possibly due to a heightened awareness of how much food waste we actually produced. Perhaps knowing made them more careful about waste, and they consciously produced less. By the second year the students were growing produce for the school salad bar and were involved in the cafeteria as well. There was also a small decrease in student population. For whatever reason, we continue to vermicompost about 2200 pounds (1000 kg) of food waste in a ten-month period.

... Make peace with this bit of wisdom: no one can control all of the encountered variables when weather, waste, worms and children are mixed. Instead, an economy of scale bestows a saving grace. Since mid-scale systems are forgiving to a point, they thrive when the requirements for any healthy ecosystem are met. I have found no better vehicle for teaching about ecosystems than a mid-scale vermicomposting bin. --THE WORM CAFE