Last Updated: Friday, November 28, 2008 8:05 AM CST
Trash meets science at NCSS
By Giles Morris
Daily News Staff
Northwoods Community Secondary School (NCSS) was short-listed as one of the best charter schools in the state last week, largely because of its innovations in the area of project-based learning. In Kay Coats’ science classroom, students are now engaged in a composting project that can teach them about ecology, fundraising, and soil science all at the same time.
Through its affiliation EdVisions an Minnesota-based charter network at operates with funding through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, NCSS has been able to develop a project-based learning curriculum that emphasizes student self-direction and experiential learning. As a result, classes have the chance to develop projects that create multi-disciplinary learning environments.
With the help of grants from Pelican Township, Trees For Tomorrow, and Waste Management and the expertise of retired middle school science teacher John Bigley and Oneida County solid waste department head Bart Sexton, Coats’ class has begun collecting lunch waste which it will compost and then, ultimately, use to plant its own garden.
The NCSS project is not the first of its kind in the Rhinelander area. Joe Conlin, a retired teacher, worked with 5th graders at the Newbold School to compost over 16 tons of lunch waste before the school closed. Branded as “Newbold Gold” the compost sold out every year it was produced, but the real benefit of the project was the knowledge it rooted in the minds of the children and their families.
“I know a lot of Newbold families picked up composting and still do it today,” Sexton said. “50 percent of what we throw away every day is compostable.”
Sexton said outreach is one of his favorite parts of his job as a county department head.
“It’s a nice part of the job here. The vast majority of the people up here want to do the right thing,” Sexton said. “Even people who would be insulted if you called them an environmentalist have some kind of environmental ethic.”
In addition to the Newbold project, Bigley ran a similar project at James Williams Middle School and the Nativity School also initiated a compost project.
Coats said the composting project is just one of the learning projects that makes NCSS a special place for students and teachers.
“Teaching science her is a dream,” Coats said. “In the traditional system I have 42 minutes from bell to bell for an experiment. Here when we’re looking at a project like this, the kids just fit it into their schedule.”
Coats’ class will maintain a worm bin in a 20-gallon plastic trashcan indoors and monitor rates of decomposition. They will maintain a much larger composting station outside, which will be fed with the lunch waste and leaves that have been raked out of neighbors’ lawns this fall. The outdoor compost heap will also be monitored for its rate of decomposition.
Students will have the chance to learn the practical principles of recycling food waste as well as learn the soil science involved in creating compost appropriate for a food garden. Getting the money to build their compost station and purchase a scale to weigh their waste material has already shown them that the first step in any science project is securing the funding.
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