A Day in the Life
Lesson Overview
Goals
- Students will be able to calculate the consumption rate of the worms.
Outcomes
Teach the Teacher
- How much do I feed my worms?
- The Complete Guide to Vermicomposting (included w/ Worm Factory 360)
Tools & Materials
- Scale
- Food scraps
- Active worm bin
Activity
Worms will plow through food scraps, and assuming all other environmental variables are optimal, increase their consumption as the population grows.
The byproduct of their lifestyle is the black gold castings they produce which can fetch more than $3/lb. So it’s in the Lab’s best interest to cater to these little critters, provide them with optimal conditions, and harvest as much black gold as possible. It could be the start of a very fruitful financial endeavor!
But just how much food will you need to provide them to keep them processing at their optimal level? With a little observation and some quick calculations you can determine their average consumption rate on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
Determine their consumption rate for a given period of time and use that to extrapolate amount of food waste your worms consume in a year assuming their population stays the same. What would their consumption be if they doubled their population under perfect conditions every 90 days?
Related Lessons
Give the Advanced lesson a try now that you’ve completed the Intermediate Lesson! Or revisit the Beginner Lesson as needed.
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