Sequoia First Graders Meet the Worms

by Sheila D'Amico

Imagine the scene. The Sequoia School students from Jackie Roth's first-grade class are being scientists. Quietly, seriously, they each peer through magnifying glasses at miniclumps of what looks like dirt. They've already checked out similar clumps. Each has put his or her nose in the clumps and sniffed. Each has felt the consistency, felt pieces of leaf, bits of gravel, felt coarse dirt, fine dirt. Each has looked at red dirt, black dirt. But this dirt is different. The clumps begin to move. The clumps quiver. They seem to squirm. Then the room fills with squeals arising not from the dirt but from the students.

Eeyew! Worms. Red worms.

That's what happened to these first graders when they participated in the Garden Plan-It class as part of their visit to Chabot Space and Science Center. The presence of the living, moving worms seemed to be the highlight of the class. Some students were a bit apprehensive at first at the idea of a worm in the hand, but most seemed to change their mind after observing the worms for a while.

Even the most reluctant worm observers had a new appreciation of the tiny animals when instructor Eric Havel told them that worms can eat half their weight in food every day. And they absolutely loved it when he explained the dirt was actually another form of compost called Vermi Compost or, the term they liked better, "worm poop."