Students at Carlson Elementary School in Idaho Springs had a chance to play in the dirt, or compost, during school while learning how to reuse discarded organic material and grow their own food.
Greenway Landscaping out of Dumont showed up with a pickup truck nearly full of three yards of dirt and material, and the kids quickly started unloading the truck using a wheelbarrow, buckets and small shovels.
Scraps-to-Soil in Idaho Springs and teachers from Carlson provided the expertise in how to add existing organic material to the soil to create a rich mixture for plants, with a little help from some worms.
“It helps them to see the systems, you know, the lifecycle systems,” Scraps-to-Soil President Ursula Cruzaqui said. “We don’t get to think about how we get to eat food, we always think it comes from the grocery store, so for them to be able to connect all those pieces… that’s very important and we believe we can capture it here.”
Many of the students huddled together while others struck out on their own with a small shovel to fill and level the dirt and compost into at least a dozen square wooden planters.
“I like how you get to use shovels and mess with the dirt and push it into the corners and make sure everything is covered so the worms can compost it,” fifth-grader Chance Bielz said.
“It will be fun to grow food and provide food to the school from my mini little garden,” Bietz said as she smiled and continued to shift soil in her planter.
First-grade Carlson teacher Liz Bogers watched the children, helping here and there with questions or to simply help move the dirt around in the individual planters.
Bogers explained Carlson students have already been collecting organic material with a bin in the patio next to the lunch room.
“When there’s leftover food, we put it in the bin and make our own compost,” Bogers said. “It’s a growing lesson.”
“The more respect and understanding we have for growing, the more we respect Mother Earth and how the earth functions, how we need every part of our ecosystem to fully be in balance with our world, each other and our living creatures,” Bogers said.
Students plan to plant their own seeds in the planters in the hopes of growing their own food, according to Cruzaqui.
The plan to plant and grow their own fruit or vegetables seemed like a pretty good idea to 5th grader Daniel McShane who said he was already eager to try what he was growing.
“I would love to eat a potato I grew. I’d probably wash it off first and then grab a fork and just eat it,” McShane said smiling and still digging.
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