Introduction:Esj #7

Recently our environmental science class visited the Upper Blackstone Water Treatment plant in Worcester MA.  What this plant basically does, is take all the water waste  in Worcester, Auburn, and Millbury, purify it, and make it clean enough to be released back into the Blackstone River. From there the water is distributed to each of the watersheds in Worcester county. Worcester and its surrounding towns are very fortunate enough to have a good water, and waste water system unlike the 1 billion people in the world who lack access to safe drinking water. I overall thought that this trip was very informative, and i also think that its good that i now know how the that I waste is treated.

Worm Composting

Today our class observed the worm composting bin for the first time since break. We noticed quite a few changes about it too. The first thing I noticed was that many of the 1,000 worms that were in the bin were gone. We found out two reasons why they were all dead. One, they were killed from getting shipped over here, or they were eaten by these things called mites. Mites are very bad for two reasons, they kill the worms who help the decomposition, and if the worms die the decomposition will get a messed up. Mites are also very hard to stop because there are thousands of them everywhere. 

After looking at the bin we decided to do something about the mites. We were asked to make an hypothesis about if an avocado shell will attract the mites. I said that I don’t think it will work  because their were all other different kinds of food in the bin and they didnt feed on that, but instead they fed on the worms. Overall i think that if we find a way to get rid of all the mites, the composting bin will work out fine.

The Buffone Garden 10/24/08

Last friday our Enviornmental science class learned about, and did some composting. The first thing we did was go to the dining hall to gather two bags of napkins, one weighing roughtly 20 pounds and the other 2 pounds.  From the dining hall we were off the the Buffone Garden were we were going to start the composting. We first thing we did was dump both bags into the compost bin and take out all the things that didnt belong there like plastic etc. Then we went over to the other bin that was filled with all the food compost. We then discovered many worms that were there. The worms serve a specific purpose. They help eat all different types of things like smaller insects, plants, and most importantly help the compost by breaking down some of the waste into good , rich healthy soil.

Another thing we found out at the garden was that 11 degrees celsius was the degrees of the compost.  We also learned how the sun heats up the bin so that it can break down things in there.