Anna Schlesinger

Danielle DOnofrio
Lydia Stocks
Bailey Zyvith
Composting at Hilburn Academy

Our field placement was at Hilburn Academy in Raleigh, NC in two diverse Kindergarten

classrooms. Hilburn is Wake Countys only PreK to 8th grade program and maintains a STEAM

(science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) focus. We see Hilburn as a great location to

begin social change, particularly environmental change, as they are already leaders in Wake

County. Recycling is seen as a mostly common practice throughout schools and communities,

but recycling does not provide a method for reuse/repurpose for all items. Creating a composting

program is a great addition to an already established recycling program because both have the

3Rs in mind: reduce, reuse, and recycle. Due to the large student population by having both an

elementary and middle school, Hilburn is the ideal place to begin implementing a composting

program.

During our time at Hilburn, we noticed that only

recycling was taking place; all other trash was simply

being thrown away. We know that here at NC State, we

have the option of landfill trash, recycling, and

composting; this is something that we want to introduce to

Hilburn. Introducing young children to composting will

create a healthier environment for years to come; we want

to create global citizens. Composting creates rich soil that is strong in moisture that helps plants

fight off diseases. By composting, we can lower our carbon footprint as methane emissions from
landfills are reduced. Composting allows for healthier plants and a healthier earth; this is

beneficial to us all.

Social Action Steps:

Week 1:

1. Discuss with cooperating teachers. The first thing we must do is get an understanding of

what state the school is in when it comes to composting. We can do this by observing the

habits of our classrooms and by asking our cooperating teachers about opportunities for

composting that they know of.

2. Define composting. Composting is not something that most people do at the homes or

see a lot in the public. Students, especially young kindergarteners, may not have ever

heard of composting before. We need to define composting for our students. Tell them

about what it is, what they can compost, and the benefits that come from composting. An

engaging way to do this might be to read a book about composting or watch a video.

3. Pump up composting! We need to get our students excited about composting. To do

this we can plan fun activities about composting that include coloring items that we could

compost, counting items throughout the day that are compostable, and more.

Week 2:

1. Start in the classroom. The best place to start this composting is in our classrooms. We

can have class-sized composting bins that we as a class use at lunch and snack time.
 2. Track our progress. We can create a chart to hang in the classrooms where we can log

how much composting that we have done. This will be an engaging way for students to

quantify how much they have composted since we got our class bin.

Week 3:

1. Partner with another classroom. There will be two kindergarten classrooms with

composting bins for their classrooms. This is a great opportunity for students to

cooperate with friends outside of their own classroom and for them to start to see how

composting can expand beyond their classroom.

2. Introduce it to other classrooms. Each class that has been composting can take their bin

and chart and share about their composting success with another classroom who is not yet

composting to encourage them to start.

3. Share it with administration. The students can also share their composting successes

with the school administration. They can also share their vision of seeing composting

expand to the whole school.

Week 4:

1. Share it with the school. Students can create posters, flyers, and other means of

spreading information to post around the school about composting and how they can

incorporate it into their classrooms. It will also be important to share how other

classrooms can get their own composting bins.

 To make these steps happen we must first collaborate with our mentor teachers and then

with the kindergarten team at Hilburn. It is really helpful that we are collaborating between two

classrooms at Hilburn to create this social action plan. The key collaboration will be between

our classrooms and our mentor teachers. We will also need to collaborate with school

administration and teachers in other grades.

We will engage with Hilburn faculty through face-to-face meetings where we share the

need for composting and the benefits of composting in our school. We will need them to be

supportive of the campaign and we will need their help getting composting bins in every

classroom.

Individuals, like the administration, may resist this social change if they are concerned

with the costs of composting. They might be concerned that it will cost a lot to get a compost

bin in every classroom or that it will cost a lot to actually compost what is collected in the bins.

To respond to this resistance, we will weigh the costs against the benefits and prove to them that

composting at Hilburn Academy is worth it.

Hilburn Academy already has a recycling program in place so adding a composting

program will not be very difficult to do. We need to not only inform ourselves about what

composting is but also the school and cooperating teachers that would like to take part in this

program. There are several resources that we will need from the school and the community. We

will need to find a place to take the compost to once it is collected. This could be a local compost

plant, a community garden or the teachers themselves that would like to take it home to their

own gardens. We will also need compost bins for each classroom and food to put in the compost
bins. The food can come from lunch, snack, the cafeteria or students who may bring items from

home that they would like to add.

Our desired outcome for this project is to have Hilburn Academy start and continue a

composting program. We want this program to be able to benefit the school as well as the

surrounding community. Our hope is that a participating compost plant will continue their

corporation and disperse the compost around the community. We want the school to be able to

have a place to put their food scraps because they already have a place to put their scrap paper.

We would like our program to benefit the environment as well because the compost can be used

to grow new plants and food that can eaten. Our environment and community can both benefit

from this program and we would love to see less food and scraps being thrown in the trash and

more of it going into the compost bins to be reused.

After implementing some of these steps in our Kindergarten classrooms, we can already

take notice of the positive effect it will have at Hilburn. A fifth grade class completed a project

about composting and discussed its importance with Kindergarten students so that they could
take action to become more involved. The older students not only educated the Kindergartners

about composting, but distinguished the difference between which items could be used for

composting and which could not. Both Kindergarten classrooms now utilize compost bins on a

weekly basis where they will fill up the bin with food that they learned could be reused. At the

end of the week, these bins will be brought outside to Hilburns composting station where the

bins will be emptied, and filled up again for the following week. These compost bins have been

incredibly educational tools due to the fact that each week these Kindergarten students are taking

initiative to make their community a better place, while simultaneously reviewing scientific

content about the environment.

Future steps to take at Hillburn would be to expand this composting project to be utilized

to some capacity to every single classroom. A great way to build classroom and school

community would be to have every grade level compete to see who fills their compost bin each

week with the most reusable food, and the winning grade would receive a fun prize that shows

appreciation for their efforts. This would be a friendly way to build community among the grade

levels, as well as build motivation to keep up with the composting initiative. This project will

provoke inquiry about composting as well as other environmental issues that can be improved

upon in their school. Our long term goal is for Hilburn to become more aware of their

environmental impact and take action through composting to build classroom engagement in

scientific content.