Explore - How Do Worms and Mould Help In Decomposition?
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Explore - How do worms and mould help in decomposition?
To see mould growing on old food can be gross, but the mould is actually doing a very important job. The mould is helping to decompose the natural waste.
Worms are also important decomposers. Gardeners want to have worms in their gardens and flower beds because worms help to produce healthy soil for plants. Worms and mould are two kinds of decomposers.
Because worms are great recyclers, some people keep worms at home to help recycle waste such as fruit and vegetable scraps, eggshells, and plant and grass clippings! This is called vermicomposting. Red wiggler worms are kept in special bins where people feed them natural waste. The worms turn the waste into healthy compost. Gardeners add the compost to their gardens to add nutrients to the soil.
Video
Meet one of nature’s best recyclers.
Watch this video to learn more about how worms decompose waste and create soil that is rich in nutrients.
Because worms are great recyclers, some people keep worms at home to help recycle waste such as fruit and vegetable scraps, eggshells, and plant and grass clippings! This is called vermicomposting. Red wiggler worms are kept in special bins where people feed them natural waste. The worms turn the waste into healthy compost. Gardeners add the compost to their gardens to add nutrients to the soil.
Video
Meet one of nature’s best recyclers.
Watch this video to learn more about how worms decompose waste and create soil that is rich in nutrients.
Video
Watch this ADLC Digital Lesson on Studying Mould.
Notebook: How does mould help in decomposition?
- Click here to download this activity.
- Complete the activity and check your answers below.
- Save your work to your Waste Notebook.
Check Your Answers
- What does mould do to food?
- In an earlier video in this unit we saw that mould releases enzymes to help break down food, that is what allows the mould to grow.
- Were your predictions correct?
- If yes, great!
- If no, that's ok! that is why we perform experiements, to test our hypotheses (or predictions) and learn from them.
- Would you do anything differently next time?
Digging Deeper
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When you have 10 pictures of your moulding food, make your own animated gif of the mould growth (such as the peach mould video you saw earlier) at
http://makeagif.com
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Build your own vermicomposting bin to recycle waste. Watch this video for step-by-step instructions.
Also, check the Green Calgary website for more information. You can download instructions on how to make your own bin.