Presenting to the Board...

The rest of the week was so much more than I could have hoped for! On Tuesday, the kids visited the dining hall and saw all of the behind the scenes equipment. They have an "extractor" which takes all of the liquid out of the wasted food. The leftovers are pumped down to a "pulper" where they are dehydrated. Unfortunately, what could be used for compost must be burned. The dehydrated leftovers are too concentrated with Carbon and Nitrogen to be safely put into the ground on its own. At this point, they don't have the facilities to safely compost the material.

After the dining hall and compost discussion, the kids came back and did tests on the soil and their compost piles. They tested the pH, nitrates, and phosphates. They discovered that their compost piles had nitrate levels that were off the charts! This told them that the worms were doing exactly what they were supposed to do--poop!

The next day, the kids kept track of the amount of trash on campus. We split off into small groups and were asked to pick up litter and put it in our bag. Our small group had an AMAZING discussion about litter. One young lady went to put an egg shell from a native bird into the litter bag. One of the boys told her she shouldn't put that in the bag, because it wasn't litter. So we asked the question: What is litter? Some argued that anything, natural or synthetic, that was out of it's habitat or niche was litter. Others argued that human impact (garbage) created litter. It was a great and thought provoking conversation for all involved!

Unfortunately, on Thursday I had to make an emergency trip to Charlottesville, so I missed out on the trip to the power plant and doing the energy audit. But when I returned, the kids were all about the energy! I knew it went well!

On Friday, the kids had to present their findings to the STARS board (members of the University's Sustainability office). It was unbelievable to me how articulate these young scientists were with their observations. Each group created either a PowerPoint presentation, a movie, or a song to present their findings. They outlined their experiment, their observations, data, and results. They answered the panel's questions with an ease and an informed maturity. One boy in my group, after being asked how he knew the pond was healthy, responded: "I know the pond is healthy because the level of dissolved oxygen is high enough to sustain life." How awesome is THAT?! There was some serious learning going on in the past 2 weeks! It was absolutely amazing to be a part of!