Greene Towne’s 2025 Earth Week was quite the success as students, parent volunteers, and faculty gathered together to care for our school environment. All had a wonderful time!
Primary classes participated in a number of activities: worm sorting and setting up a new worm bin, planting lettuce and greens to grow at home, and planting seeds and potted plants including herbs and pansies. A special thank you to the Geyelin family for donating the pansies!
Looking for worms is always a big hit. Digging in the dirt is so healing, especially for city kids! The children really enjoy collecting worms in their cups and adding them back to the new vermicompost bin. They were then able to add shredded brown paper and water to help the worms begin a whole new year’s worth of compost that will be ready to sort next year.
Students were also invited to choose flower seeds to plant in our planter boxes. It was really exciting to see them running from one planter to the next, pushing in seeds that they will have the pleasure of seeing grow into plants as the months progress. Just a week later, many seeds have already started to sprout!
Kindergartners extended their Earth Week learning by sharing what they know about trees, talking about what trees need to live, and caring for the street trees around our school. With help from parent volunteers and faculty, each kindergarten group trekked out with gloves and trowels in hand to loosen the soil around nearby trees so that rain water can reach the roots. Once the soil in the tree pits was loosened, they laid down mulch to keep the trees’ roots cool throughout the summer.
Lower Elementary students also cared for street trees and sorted our worms from finished compost. Expanding on their Earth Week studies, after hearing the Native American story about the three sisters, the 1st graders planted a three sisters garden of corn, beans, and squash. These plant crops work together symbiotically, supporting each other as they grow. We’re all looking forward to harvesting the fruits of their labors through the summer and into the fall.
2nd graders started an experiment with our composting worms. They each received a type of food scraps from our school chef: watermelon rind, cucumber scraps, orange peels, and banana bits and peels. They filled four previous (with holes) plastic bags, weighing out equal amounts of the individual food scraps and then equal amounts of ripped up dry carbon materials (paper towel rolls and packing paper), and placed them in our new worm bin.
When they returned to class, they wrote their hypotheses, anticipating which food the microorganisms that start breaking down the food scraps and the worms would like best and how many worms they will find in each bag when we check the bags in a couple weeks. We are all curious to see the results!!!
The Toddlers, our youngest students, will soon be planting their own mini gardens to bring home. Stay tuned for photos and plant care details!
Seeing life return to the playdeck and our neighborhood in the spring is such a wonderful opportunity for vocabulary enrichment, plant and animal identification, and nature appreciation. As the seeds sprout and leaf out and flowers bloom, the roofdeck becomes an oasis for our human community as well as the birds and insects.