The day for teaching finally came and I was really excited. As we frantically ran around through the garden prepping our stations, the kids were arriving. We walked over to the gates to greet them and led them to our stations. We met our group and introduced ourselves. Then we played our ice breaker game screaming toes, and it was a big success. After the game we gave them the hands on experience they were waiting for. We had them pair up and take a tray of compost with tweezers and magnifying glasses. Then Christina, Aja, and I split up and each talked to a different pair. In each group that I talked to, I told the kids to tough, pick apart, dig through, and examine the compost. I gave them about five minutes to look freely and then asked them what they knew about compost and if they knew anybody that composted. The kids actually knew a lot about this topic, which was very cool. After that we regrouped and brought out the trash time line cards. Christina would hold up a card and ask if the item pictured was compostable. If it was she handed it to me and if it was not she handed it to Aja. For the most part the kids guessed correctly but we kindly corrected them if needed. After this activity, using the same cards, we handed each kid two cards and asked them to arrange them to fastest rate if decomposition to slowest rate. In every group orange and banana peels was put first, so all the kids were surprised to find out that they were fourth on the timeline when we put them into the right order. We then thanked the kids and moved onto the next group or led them to the gates. Teaching the kids was a really great experience and my favorite project that I have done in quite a while. Both days went well, so the only thing we really improved on was knowing how the kids acted and that kids acted and how to manage our time based on this. We also learned that they have short attention spans so keeping the entertained was key.
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