Soil Your Undies and learn about growing
There’s not many of us who would want to see our cotton undies chewed up by bugs and micro-organisms. But it’s a prospect that school children in north and east Otago are relishing.
The ‘‘Soil Your Undies’’ project has a fun name but a serious purpose – getting youngsters to think about the importance of soil health for growing food.
The idea is that the children bury cotton underwear – or just strips of cotton – and dig them up again two months later. If the soil’s in good health, with sufficient moisture, microorganisms, worms, dung beetles and other favourable biological indicators, the cotton they unearth will be looking pretty chewed and threadbare. If the cotton is largely intact, it prompts questions from the youngsters about why, and what might be missing from the soil.
Maheno dairy farmer and Federated Farmers member Bridget McNally is the engagement officer for NOSLAM (North Otago Sustainable Land Management), a farmer-driven group keen to improve water quality and promote good pasture management. With a $20,000 grant from participatory science promoter Curious Minds NZ, and another $5000 from Otago Regional Council’s Eco Fund, NOSLAM has been running Soil Your Undies in seven of the district’s primary and high schools.
Bridget says Feds Senior Policy Advisor Eleanor Linscott had been a huge help with renewed funding applications and they’re now waiting on word of success that will enable them to extend their reach to 13 schools.
‘‘It’s not just the high schools running agriculture programmes. We’re now getting interest from (teachers of) mainstream subjects such as science too. It’s good to get awareness and messages about soil processes and the environment wider,’’ Bridget said.
The cotton burying class exercises have had a mixed range of results ‘‘but really it doesn’t matter how deteriorated the cotton strips are. There’s still a lot of learning going on.’’
High school pupils in particular come up with quite probing questions; ‘‘I think the project really sparks their critical thinking,’’ Bridget said.
Organic gardening and permaculture instructor Michelle Cox, who comes from a background in zoology and environmental planning, is the programme’s presenter in schools. She really gets into the part, dressing in dark chocolate brown trousers to show the primary school youngsters the colour of dark organic matter farmers and growers look for, with feathers in her hat to emphasise the role of animals, and coloured tights with dots to represent soil microbes.
The kids are ‘‘incredibly tuned in’’, she finds. Far from the protests of yuckiness that might be expected from getting hands dirty and holding wriggling worms, ‘‘they want to touch things and understand….though the older high school students act cool about it.
‘‘Getting kids interested in soil and improving their understanding of growing things….I couldn’t believe it when this job came up!’’ Michelle said.
Other Soil Your Undies partners are the East Otago Catchment Group, the Science Learning Hub, EnviroSchools Otago, AgResearch, Beef+Lamb NZ, Otago University scientists and Dung Beetle Innovations.