Activity Introduction

Quick summary: Students become familiar with the concept of composting, and complete a diagram of a “compost cycle”.

Learning goals:

  • Students learn that composting is the natural process of breaking down food scraps and garden waste, in a bin or heap, into humus (rich soil) that can be used on the garden.
  • Students learn that compost is the material produced from a compost bin or heap. This makes wonderful fertiliser for the garden.

Australian Curriculum content description:

Year 1 Science

  • People use science in their daily lives, including when caring for their environment and living things (ACSHE022)
  • Represent and communicate observations and ideas in a variety of ways such as oral and written language, drawing and role play (ACSIS029)

Year 1 English

  • Engage in conversations and discussions, using active listening behaviours, showing interest, and contributing ideas, information and questions (ACELY1656)
  • Create short imaginative and informative texts that show emerging use of appropriate text structure, sentence-level grammar, word choice, spelling, punctuation and appropriate multimodal elements, for example illustrations and diagrams (ACELY1661)

Year 2 Science

  • People use science in their daily lives, including when caring for their environment and living things (ACSHE035)
  • Represent and communicate observations and ideas in a variety of ways such as oral and written language, drawing and role play (ACSIS042)

Year 2 English

  • Listen for specific purposes and information, including instructions, and extend students’ own and others’ ideas in discussions (ACELY1666)
  • Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning and begin to analyse texts by drawing on growing knowledge of context, language and visual features and print and multimodal text structures (ACELY1670)
  • Create short imaginative, informative and persuasive texts using growing knowledge of text structures and language features for familiar and some less familiar audiences, selecting print and multimodal elements appropriate to the audience and purpose (ACELY1671)

Syllabus Outcomes: ST1-11LW, ST1-9ES, ST1-4WS, EN1-1A, EN1-2A, EN1-4A. 

Topic: Solid waste

Time required: 60 mins

Level of teacher scaffolding: High – facilitate activity, collect examples of food stuffs, compost and garden waste, photocopy worksheet.

Resources required: Art materials, student worksheet. You will also need examples of the following:

  • fresh fruit and vegetables
  • fruit skins and vegetable scraps
  • garden waste (leaves, small stalks, grass clippings, weeds)
  • fresh compost

Digital technology opportunities: Digital sharing capabilities.

Homework and extension opportunities: This activity includes some opportunities for extension.

Safety: Students follow class safety code, especially if handling food waste and using art equipment.

Keywords: Waste, compost, breaking down, food, vegetables, compost cycle.

 

Cool Australia’s curriculum team continually reviews and refines our resources to be in line with changes to the Australian Curriculum.

Worksheets

Teacher Worksheet

Teacher preparation:

Overarching learning goal: Students become familiar with the concept of composting, and complete a diagram of a “compost cycle”.

Teacher content information: If you don't have a class or school composting system, this might be a good time to start! School compost bins or heaps are relatively cheap and easy to maintain, and in the classroom all you'll need is a small bin with a lid that can be emptied daily. You might like to have a chart beside the bucket with drawings of the food stuffs that can be placed in there and those that can’t. Aim to keep this simple: e.g. CAN - vegetable and fruit scraps, CAN’T - sandwiches, cakes, biscuits, meat and cheese (as these things will start to smell and attract flies).

Hot tips: Students follow class safety code, especially if handling food waste and using art equipment.

Student and classroom organisation:

Step 1. Ask the students what they have noticed about fruit scraps that are thrown on the ground.

  • What happens to
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Student Worksheet

Colour in and cut out the circles on this page and stick them in the right order in the spaces on the next page to create the compost cycle.

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