Teacher Presents Composting Project as Model for NJ Schools

Bugs, odors, animals, how to secure it and what to do with it.

Those are the most common questions about composting, particularly if you’re creating a composting program at a school.  It’s also what Hillsborough High School Industrial Technology Teacher Timothy Zavacki told technology teachers from throughout the state last month, during the New Jersey Technology Education Association Annual Conference.

“A lot of people want to do it, they just don’t know how, especially teachers” Zavacki said.  “Since teachers reach a lot of kids, this is a way to show that it’s something everyone can do.”

Zavacki’s something of an expert at introducing composting as a class project—he created Hillsborough High School’s composting program in summer 2007, using an old shipping crate.  He introduced the composting project to his Intro to Technology students that fall, asking them to bring in items for the project.

Four years later, the composting program is still going, with the items coming from Zavacki’s students and from the schools’ foods classes.

“The kids at first, they don’t know what to think of it when you tell them to bring garbage and things that can be composted,” he said.  “Some of the kids will pull me aside and say they do this at home.  A lot of kids have an interest in it but a lot of kids don’t have a spot at their house to do it.”

But for introducing a program to a school, there will always be a lot of questions, he said.  Luckily, composting isn’t complicated—it’s basically adding the right ingredients, watering and turning the mixture.  The mixture doesn’t attract bugs or animals if properly maintained and can be used to introduce nutrients to soil.

“A lot of people think it’s harder than it is and I really want to displace that myth,” he said.  “I hope that they walked away with a new understand of composting and how it fits into the world of bio technology and environmental studies.”

“Composting is one of the easiest things people can do to help the environment,” he added.