Vision

Our vision was to purchase a FoodCycler – that ‘recycles’ food waste into a compost like material that can be mixed with dirt.

We wanted to do this project because we wanted to cut down on food waste. At our school food waste gets thrown into the garbage, which heads over to the landfill. We want to reduce the amount of our food waste because we know food waste in landfills contributes to greenhouse gases.

We wanted to increase our impact even more by collecting food waste from other grade 8 classes, as well as the classes of Eco Club members. We planned to collect their food waste in plastic buckets, and then combine it in our FoodCycler with our waste to turn into compost.

We wanted to share the work we would do with the community as well, so we set up a Facebook Page called “8A World Changers” that will document this FoodCycle process, along with our other ongoing environmental projects. We planned to document the process by taking pictures, videos, and posting updates into the Facebook Group for family, friends, and the community to see.

Action

Our class, 8A, were leaders in this FoodCycling project. We gathered food waste in bins from our class, 8B, 8C, and four classes where there were Eco Club members. From November to April, we gathered over 240kg of food waste, and using our FoodCycler we created 48kg of FOODtastic compost! Students from 8A packed up the compost into bags and designed a label to put on each bag that talks about what the compost is made from, and how to properly use it.

8A worked to plan and host an Earth Week event that had 2 days of a drop in event for the whole school. At this event they displayed research projects, artwork, reports on animals, and had a poster board that discussed the FoodCycler project. Students stood by the board and handed out bags of compost to staff members who had a garden at home! Staff were very impressed by the project.

Reflection & Celebration

Over 150 students were directly reached by participating in the collecting of food waste for this project. At our event, about 220 students were impacted by attending the event, and about 40 teachers. Through the posting in the 8A World Changers, and the community Facebook group, over 500 community members saw our work!

The 32 8A students were very hard working and dedicated to this project, and had to overcome some obstacles through the process. They all worked on developing eco-literacy skills, as well as critical thinking and problem solving skills.

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