Whanganui workshop teaches kids and parents how to build their own worm farm

Alfie and Henry Wall checks out the worms. Photo / Stuart Munro

A group of children and parents were able to learn the ins and outs of worm farms at the Whanganui Resource Recovery Centre yesterday.

The centre is holding several events this week for the school holidays and its environmental educator, Anna Dawson, shared her expertise on worm farms.

The group listened to a short lesson on worms before Dawson took out some worms for everyone to see.

The children gathered around in pairs and sorted through piles of soil and organic matter to find some of the tiger worms that were set out.

"Composting for kids isn't that exciting," Dawson said.

"But worm farming is very similar to composting, but it's a bit more exciting because the worms are involved.

"This is the first time I've run a holiday workshop around worm farming mainly because the worm farming's been really popular with school groups. [We thought] it would be really good to do something and tie it in with plastic-free July."

The groups then went outside to investigate the old bath being used as a worm farm at the Resource Recovery Centre as well as the new commercial worm farm set up there.

Dawson helped the children build their own worm farms out of ice-cream containers.

"Worm farming's teaching them their food scraps and green waste are actually quite valuable," she said.

"Rather than sending them to landfill, where they're probably one of the more dangerous things we can put into the landfill because they actually break down, we're showing them that you can do something useful with them and that it's actually quite fun."

The centre will host a winter workshop Thursday (10.30am-1pm) and an Art & Science Lab on Friday (9.30am-11am).