Lesson 4 - Part A: WORM FARMING
Lesson 4 - Part B: COLLECTING WORM CASTINGS
PREPARATION FOR LESSON 4:
Please read through the Lesson 4 text for students. The preparation for this lesson will vary, depending on whether your school has an established worm farm or is setting up a worm farm.
Students may want to help set up the worm farm in your school by adding the bedding and the worms to their housing. Or, they can collect worm castings and separate worm eggs from established worm farms.
If your worm farm is already productive, you will need one or two scoops to remove worm castings from the farm. The scoops can be made by removing the base and part of the sides of a large plastic drink container as shown on page 2 of this lesson.
An old tray and an old teaspoon or two will be helpful in enabling students to remove worm eggs from the worm castings while wearing gardening gloves.
If your worm farm is not ready, and you can get some composting (worm-farm) worms and a small quantity of finely shredded coconut fibre, students can provide temporary accommodation for the worms in a Styrofoam vegetable box that has slots in the base.
To do this:
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Place a piece of old fly screen or about 8 sheets of wet newspaper in the base of the box, and line the sides of the box with a sheet of wet newspaper
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Soak the coconut fibre until thoroughly wet, then place this on top of the newspaper or fly screen in the bottom of the box
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The worms, and a small quantity of food can be added to the bedding. Then cover the worms and food with several more layers of wet newspaper
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Slotted vegetable boxes do not usually come with lids. A makeshift lid that allows some air to enter will help to keep the paper moist and exclude light from the feeding area
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This lesson is a continuation of 'making soil healthy' component of the program and, as many children enjoy worm farming, you may prefer to conduct it as a separate lesson in the gardening area.
This lesson begins by describing the difference between worms that turn soft organic waste into a form of colloid humus, and the earthworms that help complete the composting process in a compost 'factory'.
It also provides information on the uses for worm castings and the best conditions to improve worm farm production.
This section describes how to collect the castings and separate the eggs, so that worm numbers in the farm will increase.
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