The kids have been waiting all year for this moment.
Behind local farmer and composting consultant Steven Wynbrandt is a series of five-foot-tall containers. The K-8 students at The Wesley School in North Hollywood adorned them with a giant banner that reads, “5,220 lbs of food waste saved from landfills.” Now that the first container has been curing for a year, it’s time to see what’s inside.
“Ok! Want to crack this baby open?” says Wynbrandt.
The “YEAH!” from the kids is deafening.
Steven Wynbrandt leads students at The Wesley School through its first-ever compost harvesting ceremony. Photo by Caleigh Wells.
They hound him with questions as he breaks each tie holding the tarp closed: “Is it going to smell?” “What’s it going to look like?” “Is it going to spill out?”
With the final tie broken, he throws open the container to reveal rich, black, moist dirt. Compost.
“It doesn’t stink at all!” says one of the kids up front. “It smells earthy!”
The 5,200 pounds of food waste diverted from a landfill is great news for the climate. Food that breaks down in a landfill produces methane – one of the most potent greenhouse gasses. But transforming organic material into compost minimized methane production.
The compost predictions graph was one of many compost assignments in Johnna Hampton-Walker’s science class. Photo by Caleigh Wells.
It would have been much easier for the campus staff to toss the school’s food waste into a city-provided green bin, thanks to California’s law that requires municipal food waste recycling. Then it would be whisked away to an industrial compost facility.
But taking it out of sight would miss the point, says their science teacher Johnna Hampton-Walker.
“When it's invisible like that, they don't see it,” she says. “They know, but it doesn't sink in.”
When sixth grader Finn Hollier saw the finished compost pile, it sank in.
“That's my orange chicken in there,” he says. “That's not just like any food. Somewhere in there is my food.”
Students were tasked with comparing the compost’s texture, color, and smell with their previous predictions for science class. Photo courtesy of Steven Wynbrandt.
The school will use the compost on plants that grow on campus, offer it to families that want to use some at home, and donate whatever is left.
Fifth grader Kingston Mitchell was excited to learn his old food will help grow new food right on campus. “It feels good that you're doing something that helps the planet, instead of just sitting and watching it get destroyed,” he says.
That’s the response Wynbrandt is looking for. He works with individual schools to start these composting programs because, he says, “a lot of us, especially kids, feel really overwhelmed and powerless and don't know what to do. This is quite an existential crisis, and how do we make a difference? How do we make a dent?”
One student in The Wesley School program felt powerful enough that she started taking climate action outside of school too. Along with several other fifth graders, Sloane Montgomery says, “We did a lemonade stand at our friend's house and we made over $200, and we donated it to the NRDC,” the Natural Resources Defense Council. They also helped create a petition to replace the plastic forks and spoons in the school cafeteria with compostable ones.
Jennifer Silverstein says this composting program checks a lot of the boxes for effective, positive climate education. She’s a therapist, a social worker, and part of the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America.
“Instead of [teaching kids] just, ‘all these horrible things are happening,’ it's like, ‘all these horrible things are happening, AND there's all these adults out there who are really actively trying to make it better. And here's ways you can participate.’”
Silverstein says part of helping kids understand the gravity of climate change is to build their tolerance to new – and sometimes devastating – information. She says during those difficult conversations, it helps to allow them to move around, be outside in nature, and participate in collective action.
Fifth grader Leo Castagnetti says he’s found the composting problem helpful.
“Knowing I'm a part of something good just helps me sleep at night,” he says. “If we can just work together, it's all going to be okay and everything's going to work out fine.”