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Back to HomeFeature Article - March 8, 2012 Worms, Wonderful Worms! at Prince Charles PSby Julie Druker
Photo: students of Prince Charles PS' Eco Team with staff team members Ashley Doucette and Kevin Wenkoff with guest presenter Gerrie Baker, the Worm Lady, who is helping the school in their goal of becoming a certified Ontario Eco School for 2012.
Students at Prince Charles Public School were treated to a special presentation by Westport's Worm Lady on March 5.
Gerrie Baker, a.k.a. the Worm Lady, is a long time farmer and owner/operator of the Worm Factory, a business she uses to educate and supply the general public with worm habitats as a means of improving their garden soil while reducing the amount of waste that they put into landfill.
In a school-wide assembly at PCPS on March 5, Gerrie educated students about the incredible work that the red wrigglers, properly known as annelida oligochaeta, perform by turning all non-plastic, metal and glass products into fertile soil. “My purpose is to show these students that all of their paper and lunch box waste can be recycled and kept out of the landfill. The intention here is to change garbage into gardens and it's a wonderful program where the children can recycle all of their carbon-based waste, which includes floor sweepings, lunch box leftovers, hair, fibers, feathers and left over craft materials, by feeding it to the worms.”
The presentation included information about the physiology and anatomy of these “great soil engineers” and was part of the school's recent efforts to become a certified Ontario Eco School. PCPS students and staff are attempting the certification for the very first time this year. Following the presentation Gerri visited seven classrooms, where she set up red wriggler habitats in recycled green plastic containers. She supplied each of the seven classrooms that had signed up with a bag of red wrigglers in a proper worm habitat and instructed staff and students how to properly care for the worms, what and how much to feed them.
Students in Ms. O'Brien's, Ms. Fox's and Ms. Jalbert's classes were intently focused on the worms and Baker's description of these night-time crawlers who do so much to keep our planet green by turning everyday garbage and waste into beautiful fertile soil.
Ashley Doucette, a teacher candidate from Queens University who is currently completing her third and final placement at PCPS, joined forces with the school's French teacher Kevin Wenkoff to form an Eco Team at the school. “I heard about Gerrie Baker, the Worm Lady, from one of my professors at Queens and I thought it would be a great presentation for the students here. I pitched the idea to the staff and they seem very interested. The goal of the presentation is to expose the students here to another way of reducing the carbon waste produced at the school, which is also one of the goals of the Eco team. The subject matter also ties in with the grade 2/3 curriculum in the soils unit so for some of the classes the subject matter is curriculum based,” Doucette said.
Students were enthralled with Gerrie and her red wrigglers and look forward to watching their numbers grow while witnessing the change as they turn everyday classroom refuse into rich fertile soil. Anyone interested in more information about The Worm Lady or in booking her for a presentation can contact her at 613-273-7595 or 613-583-7509 or by email at [email protected]
