Work Matters: Practical management - Ecology - Great for compost

Children at Column Nursery in Shrewsbury are learning how to turn waste into compost, by feeding their vegetable and fruit peelings to a thousand worms in their very own wormery.

The nursery is one of 35 nurseries and schools across Shropshire that have received a free wormery in celebration of Charles Darwin's bicentenary from the Shropshire Wildlife Trust's project.

Kay Rogers, manager of Column Nursery, which has 55 children on its roll, says, 'The Trust sent out letters to all the nurseries and schools asking if we were interested in having a wormery. There were only 35 going, so I rang up straight away.

'We have a large garden here and we have been growing tomatoes and potatoes and the children enjoy digging, and it seemed an extension of what we were already doing.

'A little girl comes here who has chickens in her garden. She had been digging up worms to feed to her chickens and had been telling us all about it, so we realised that the children would be fascinated by it - and they are.'

However, she admits that the children are more fascinated by the worms than staff are.

'The children are definitely more into holding the worms than the staff. We save all the peel from our vegetables and fruit and feed them to the worms twice a week. Eventually the worms will turn it into a compost and they will also produce a liquid, a bit like Baby Bio, which is really good for the plants. It is great for teaching children about the whole recycling process and they have really enjoyed learning about it,' says Ms Rogers.

Learning about lifestyle

The nursery has also incorporated the worm theme into other activities.

The children have cooked spaghetti that looked like worms. They have also drawn pictures of worms and made a wiggly worm trail with the pictures that led to the book corner, encouraging them to visit the book corner.

Sara Bellis, people and wildlife manager for the Shropshire Wildlife Trust, believes that wormeries are a great learning tool for young children.

She says, 'A wormery is such an environmentally-friendly community that it becomes a tangible starting point for even very young people to begin thinking about lifestyles and how we deal with waste. The children's care and the worms' hard work will result in plenty of rich nutritious worm compost, which will be used in nursery gardens to grow fruit and vegetables, starting the whole nutrient cycle again.'

Further information

www.shropshirewildlifetrust.org.uk