Friday, February 27, 2009

Le compost


On Tuesday, February 17, we went to Wolfe´s Neck Farm to measure the temperature of their compost piles. The temperature ranged from around 80 ° F to 140° F in their smaller pile. We could see steam rising from certain areas of the pile. In the big pile, though, the temperature was only around 40° F. Measurements were taken from different areas and depths of the piles.
Afterward, Heather (a volunteer at the farm) came to our classroom to talk to us about trash.We learned that the average American generates about 4.4 lbs of trash per day. About 70% goes to landfills (American or foreign), 25% gets incinerated, creating toxic gases, and the rest ends up in the ocean, creating huge piles of trash, one of which is about the size of Texas. We sorted three bags of trash into four piles: compost, recyclable, reusable, and real trash. Close to 75% was not true trash.
While at the farm, as an additional treat, we had a lot of fun feeding and petting the animals.

The sixth graders.