Our goal is to inspire and educate our students and whole school community to reduce food waste by composting and making healthy soil for our school garden. I teach every child from kindergarten to fifth grade. We learn how to plant and care for seeds and make healthy snacks and meals from what is harvested in our garden. This thorough and comprehensive program from Aina in Schools teaches agriculture, composting and nutrition.

At every cafeteria meal, we see a lot of food thrown in the trash and wasted. In our third grade curriculum, students learn that this food waste can be transformed into nutritious soil instead of waste that produces methane and leachate. We teach the students three types of composting (aerobic, vermicomposting, bokashi).

I teamed up with a fellow teacher who is passionate about bokashi composting. In bokashi composting, meat, fruits, vegetables, starches and even bones can be composted. So, the school meals except for the milk can be completely composted with bokashi. My students and I make the bokashi that mixes in with the food waste in an aerobic bucket. My partner teacher and students collect the food waste and bury the bokashi. Over time, this food waste decomposes and we transfer it to our garden beds. The students get to see the full circle of composting and gardening.

We would like to compost throughout the year. The students absolutely. love making the bokashi and burying the food waste. They also love to plant the seeds in the beds that are newly nourished with the compost.