On Monday September 24th the entire student body of DCMS eagerly ran to the vans parked outside, in excitement for their weekly buddy visit with The Island School students. Together, The Island School students and DCMS students work on a service project for the community. The grade 8 DCMS class and their buddies are focusing on supporting a health initiative by local non-profit One Eleuthera. They are helping One Eleuthera design and conduct educational outreach for the organizations healthy eating and health gardens initiative. This week the group learned about compost so that they could serve as the experts in later outreach events.
[slideshow]
Experts at The Island School were interviewed by the students and provided excellent insight into each projects focus. The grade 8’s started by working with Joseph, who brought students to “compost land” and let them see firsthand The Island School’s compost piles. He explained the system they use as well as the previous models they have tried. It was great for the students to see compost in action, as well as to find out about some of the potential problems and how to avoid or fix them. He explained how to help compost breakdown most efficiently and how it needed attention and care. Both DCMS and Island School students had plenty of questions about how compost worked.
Next, the grade 8’s visited with Josh from CEI and discussed further the benefits of using compost rather than throwing away organic waste. Josh had some excellent insight and discussed many of the advantages to compost from the smallest bacteria and animals to the humans who eventually got nutrient rich soil to start an at home garden. Josh continued to talk about the negative side effects of throwing away organic material and how it affected local plants, animals and people.
After both interviews the grade 8’s and their buddies had a brainstorming session on how to use all of the information they had received. Some great ideas were brought out of it and students walked away knowing so much more. As DCMS students said goodbye to their buddies and walked back to the vans there was energy and excitement all around, the grade 8 class looks forward to next Monday and being able to start educating the community about composing and how everyone can be doing it at home. A big thank you goes out to Josh and Joseph for their time and excellent insight for all of the groups.