Composting Gets a Fresh Start in the Lower School

Thanks to creative and persuasive presentations from the Chicks and Viceroys during our November Small School Meeting, Lower School classrooms are moving towards 100% participation in classroom composting! Food waste from lunch and snack time is being collected and brought down to the compost bins in the garden, which in turn will help our garden grow next spring.

If you’ve been to our Cove campus, you know that composting has always been an important aspect of every trip and students and summer campers alike are encouraged not only to compost food waste but also to reduce food waste by making sure the food you take is the food you plan to eat. The food waste at the Cove is called Orts, which I’ve learned is a Middle English word meaning a small scrap of food left after a meal. Children and adults work hard to reduce their amount of waste and learn about food insecurity issues as well as nature’s recycling process along the way.

For many years, classroom composting was more consistent at our Alexandria campus, but these efforts have largely waned in the last few years, especially during the pandemic. We’re excited to get back on track, and I should note that this latest effort by our Lower School students to get things moving toward the compost bin wasn’t the first. Several years ago, the Buckeyes class researched compost and published a book about how to do it, which is available for checkout in our library.

Now with our Jk-3 farm studies program firmly in place, thanks to Farm Studies teacher Ali Shepard and Allie Sorlie, our new Lower School science teacher, we are ready to get composting and our garden back in full swing by spring! All of this ties in beautifully with Burgundy’s Sustainability Mission, which we’ve been working on for a while and states that we strive to model sustainable practices and effect positive change through our own behaviors. What could be more positive than reducing waste while contributing to bringing our garden back to good health?

We hope our students will inspire your own composting efforts at home! To learn more about home composting visit EPA’s website. Your local government’s website should tell you how to compost in your area. In some places, free curbside pickup is available and in others, there are places where you can drop it off. Click here for a list of drop-off places in Northern Virginia. Private companies like Compost Crew also offer weekly curbside pickup for a fee.