For 15 years, Earth Matter NY has diligently worked with the community and partners to teach about composting. Earth Matter’s Open Source Curriculum are curated DIY activities that are core to compost education and what we’ve provided to our apprenticeships, volunteers, and community throughout the years. Each activity will outline the how and why – materials you will need, how to conduct the activity, special notes of its importance, FAQs, and relevance to creating some salient components involved in cultivating community composting. Earth Matter has poured its collective knowledge and magic to bring to everyone hands-on learning activities from all of our programs, allowing everyone to bring a piece of Earth Matter to their community, schools, and gardens.
The Open Source Curriculum will be available online for free and in English, Spanish, and Chinese.
Humic Acid
Nature Pocketbook
Compost Sock
Street Tree Care
Compost Sifter
Seed Start Mix
3-2-1 “Browns” Mix
Garlic Juice Press
Herbal Hand Sanitizer
Comfrey Tea
Soil Solarization
Flower Press
Lasagna Compost Bed
Seed Greenaid
Backyard Device Compost Data Sheet
Thermophilic Compost Batch Data Sheets
Bench for Critters (kids)
Humic Acid
OBJECTIVE: Determine maturity of compost, help boost fungal content of aerated compost tea, dechlorinate water
TIME: 20 Minutes
DIFFICULTY: Easy
CATEGORY: Composting and Farming
Click the language you want to view and/or download in:
English
3-2-1 “Browns” Mix
OBJECTIVE: Create a diversified carbon source (“browns”) “batch” for community composters to have “on hand” for best practices/management of community scale participatory composting whose sites include processing of food scraps.
TIME: 45 minutes
DIFFICULTY: Easy – all ages
CATEGORY: Composting
Click the language you want to view and/or download in:
English
Spanish
中文
Comfrey Tea
OBJECTIVE: Create a natural soil amendment packed with nutrients and dense in potassium, phosphorus and nitrogen for annual vegetable crops, perennial plants and trees.
TIME: 10-20 days
DIFFICULTY: Easy
GROUP SIZE: 10-16 people
CATEGORY: Composting and Farming
Click the language you want to view and/or download in:
English
Flower Press
OBJECTIVE: Construct a flower press that can be used to start an herbarium. Herbariums are a systematically arranged collection of plants. Herbariums are often used to catalogue plant specimens and record data over time.
DIFFICULTY: Easy – Medium
GROUP SIZE: 1-2 people
CATEGORY: Gardening, Art
Click the language you want to view and/or download in:
English
Spanish
中文
Thermophilic Compost Batch Data Sheets
OBJECTIVE: Data sheets to record dates, action, observations and data on a thermophilic compost batch.
DIFFICULTY: Easy
CATEGORY: Compost and Soil Health
Click the language you want to view and/or download in:
English
