Mother Earth

Posted on April 6, 2015 in Projects & Articles

Try These Earth Friendly Projects!

Make a Worm Farm!

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What you need: a large bucket or tub, bedding material,
screen wire for covering container, 1 piece of burlap, table
scraps, and about 100 earthworms. You can dig for these, but be sure to get permission from your grownup! Or you can purchase your starter stock…some stores that sell fishing gear sell bait worms.

What you do: Fill tub about 8 inches deep with bedding material.
Add water (H2O) until it is moist. You will need to occasionally
add water every 2 weeks or so. Mix in table scraps. Be careful
to not overload them. Cover the soil with damp burlap to prevent
evaporation. With a good balance of this “food” and water you will
begin to notice you have many more worms! By the end of 6 months you
could have more than 4000 worms in there!

What this does: Your worm farm can be a good way to use up some of the kitchen waste and create quality soil for a garden.
Worm Tips: As your worms propagate they can be recycled into your garden or flower beds. (They will nourish and loosen the soil). And if you want to go fishing you’re set!
Keep your worm farm from freezing. This can be an indoor or outdoor project. If you run out of table scraps you can toss in some dog kibble!

Interesting worm trivia: Earth worms have no lungs or gills. They breathe
through their skin. Eggs are laid in a cuff-like structure called the clitellum.
Each earth worm segment or annulus except the first and last has four pairs
of tiny bristles called setae. Earthworms range in size from 1 millimeter to 3 meters
long!

To read more about worm farms try here

2-13-12 … Thanks to Amy B for recommending these links for earth science, water cycles:
Erosion Wind Water and Ice
Water Cycle, for Kids
Water in Atmosphere
Evaporation Experiment

Want to try raising Crickets? Go to
The Bug Page!

The Pop Bottle Terrarium

What you need: plastic 2 liter pop bottle with cap,
potting soil, small
plant(s),tape, ribbon, and water (H2O).

What you do: Have a grownup help cut the bottom from
the plastic bottle (about 3 1/2″). Save the bottom part (base).
Put soil in the “base” and place your small plant into the soil.
Cover the roots, press the soil firmly and add a little water.
Fit the bottle over the base and secure with a band of duct tape.
You can fasten a nice looking ribbon over the tape. This
terrarium should not need watering very often depending of
course upon the plant type. If you were able to get a bottle
with one of those plastic caps on the bottom then this project
will be a snap…all you need do in this case is to have your grownup
pull off the base, cut the TOP instead of the bottom, and fit the bottle
top end down. It should fit snugly with no need of tape. Your goal should
be to create as close to a closed system as possible where very little or
no care is needed to maintain the plant or plants. Make sure the location
for your terrarium supplies it with the proper lighting.

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Try this Air Quality Science Project ←
click above to try out the dirty air project.

Try raising chickens in your back yard! Hatch eggs! Farm your own eggs! And gain a supply of great garden compost in the process. 😉