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Table of Contents
Page 4…………………………………… Organism of The Year
Page 6…………………………………………… Food Deserts
Page 7………………………………………… More on Worms
Page 8…………………..……………………………… Compost
Page 9………………………………………………………. Quiz
Page 10……………………………………………………Poems
Page 13………………………………………. Propaganda Poster
Page 14 ………………………………... Letters from the Editors
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Organism of the Year!
Worms are a fascinating species. From providing the earth with natural fertilizer and great nutrients to making air tunnels in the soil to create a less condensed soil. Soil has to be healthy, and the worms help out a lot with that. If our soil isn’t healthy, then organisms will leave that habitat because the conditions are not right for them. When the soil isn’t healthy, and the organisms leave, the plants will start to die and stop growing in that area. That means that the ground would start to dry up and the soil wouldn’t absorb water when it rained or snowed. The water would run off the top layer of the earth and back into the ocean, and that’s not what we need. This is what is happening to California right now because of the drought. We are polluting the air which is hurting our atmosphere, thus creating all sorts of problems including affecting the soil. This causes major damage in food sources and in habitats for organisms. Soil is more than what meets the eye. We treat it like nothing but without it we would die. Soil is important because it helps us and everything around us live. Soil helps us grow healthy food with lots of nutrients. It helps grow all of the forest and greenery around the world, and without it we wouldn't have plants which provide oxygen. We breath in oxygen and breath out carbon dioxide. The plants that grow in the soil take in the carbon dioxide and let out oxygen. We trade our sources, and without soil, this wouldn’t be possible. Soil also creates jobs for farmers, so it employs many people that otherwise wouldn’t have jobs. It also provides shelter for many living organisms. Soil is the foundation for our homes and buildings. We need it for work and shelter. We use it for recreation, like in playgrounds, for soccer and other outdoor sports. It also preserves our history by beholding artifacts and memories from many many years ago. We use it in our everyday lives without even knowing it, and take it for granted when it’s actually what keeps us alive. People may think that soil will be forever here, that there are no threats, but they are wrong. Soil Erosion is when the upper part of the soil cover washes away or blows away. The main causes of soil erosion are wind, water, and the misuse of land in certain places of the world. For many years soil erosion has been occurring on and off. There is a lot of evidence that human activities are causing erosion to accelerate in many parts of the world. With soil erosion accelerating, our soil, which provides our food, forestry, wildlife, and other important things, is gradually disappearing. Because of soil erosion, the U.S is losing soil ten times faster than nature can produce it. Soil erosion has also been linked to the downfall of some of the greatest civilizations like Aztec, the Mayan and the some of the civilizations of the Near East and the Mediterranean Basin. What if soil erosion becomes worst and our city, or state, or country, or continent, or even our world won’t be here anymore?
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Worms play a huge roll in compost and soil produce. They eat the compost you put in each day (e.g. paper shreds, old fruits and vegetables, dead plants, etc. No dairy, meat, or oils.) and when they digest it, the compost comes out in castings. Worms create castings which are moist and nutritious. Some of the moistness in the castings can drip down into the soil and become a great fertilizer. This is called worm tea. Worm tea is one of the most natural and efficient ways of fertilizing soil, and our organism of the year is the producer. Many companies like Miracle Grow have tried to recreate this fertilizer, but no artificial fertilizer is as nutritious as worm tea. There are many different species of worms, including the Red Wigglers and the earthworms. Red Wigglers are the main composting worm. The Earthworm makes tunnels in the ground, all throughout the soil, which makes it possible for air and water to travel sufficiently through the soil. Earthworms are a great example of how worms help to make the soil healthier. The tunnels that the air flows through make the soil less compact, making it possible for more organisms and plants to grow and live. These tunnels also make the soil more absorbent to water. Red Wigglers are another great example of how worms help make the soil healthier and help create new soil. The Red Wigglers create new soil parts like castings, and they add nutrients like worm tea and compost all natural products like dead plants, dead animals, old food, etc. Worms contribute to the soil by making it more nutritious and more absorbent to water. They help with the California drought and make the soil airier so more organisms can live in the soil. Soil is important is so many ways, but we are so busy with our social life we don’t give it a second thought. Albert Einstein once said, “I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.” This is saying that we are forgetting about the soil and nature that is a part of our world, and now we are focusing on technology and status updates. We should pay attention to the nature in our life and not waste it while we have it. We may not think soil and the organisms that live in a square foot of soil are important but without them we wouldn’t be here. Next time you look down at the soil beneath your feet don’t think of it as dirt, appreciate it for all it does for you. The soil provides you with food, oxygen, and it provides shelter for other organisms. We take soil for granted, and we don’t take the time to learn and appreciate what it actually does for us. We think of soil as dirt. Always seeking more, we don’t truly appreciate that the soil is one of the greatest contributors to human life. One bird in the hand is worth two in a bush.
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Food Deserts A food desert is an area where affordable healthy food is hard to obtain, especially if citizens in these areas don’t own cars. A food desert usually a low income town that consists of fast food restaurants and convenience stores. Research shows that about 20% of people living in rural areas live more than 10 miles from a grocery store containing nutritious food. I have vacationed in a food desert in Oregon called Black Butte. When ever I go there with my family we have to bring our own food because we don’t have access to food. Many people live in the ranch and about ⅔ of the ranch you can rent a cabin. There are other more expensive options like renting a condo at the lodge and eating in the lodge, but that is not ideal if you are a low-income family. The nearest grocery store is about 8 miles from anywhere in the ranch, so it would be hard to obtain healthy food if you didn’t own a car. There is one convenience store in the ranch, but it does not sell nutritious food. I think if grocery stores opened in food deserts where there are a lot of low income families that they would be useless because nutritious food is more expensive and they might not have the money to pay. They have also probably eaten fast food all their life and might not want to explore new horizons. We could help fix this problem by encouraging starting a garden (like Ron Finley, he is doing a great job). Asking grocery stores to build stores in food deserts and lowering their prices. We could also turn the fast food restaurants into drive through grocery stores where you call in your order and when you drive through they give you
your food.
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More on Worms Pictured here is a worm. There are about 6,000 different species of worms, but the type of worm in the picture is a Red Wiggler. Red Wigglers are short and skinny and are most commonly found in compost bins, and in playgrounds. In the topsoil, generally speaking. Red Wigglers prefer more confined living spaces, like a compost bin. When you have a compost bin filled with worms, it’s better to have 100 to 200 worms, or a pound, because worms can only eat their body size. Earth worms are long and fat and prefer larger areas where they can travel more. Earth worms provide the soil with tunnels that help air flow through the soil, whereas Red Wigglers do more of the eating and creating fertilizer. Earthworms and Red Wigglers are the most commonly found worm. Red Wigglers are more important when it comes to fertilizer and adding more nutrients to the soil. When you add stuff to a compost bin, the worm eats and digests it and then releases it in castings, worm poop. The castings are usually moist and have lots of nutrients in it. This is a great source of nutrients for the soil. Without compost or worms, we wouldn’t have soil that would be a good habitat for certain organisms or a good environment for plants to grow in. This one of the many main reasons why worms are beneficial to our environment.
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Composting The picture above is a drawing of my backyard/garden. Today, when we learned how to make a compost box, I realized that it Isn’t that hard to construct one. All you need is some old ripped newspaper, a pound of worms, and a pound of food (old moldy food, eggshells, lettuce, etc… but no meat or dairy). After our session with Iesha, I realized exactly how effective composting was. Red wrigglers, the worms used for composting, produce worm tea, which is basically juice form their dropping. Worm tea is a great fertilizer for your plants, better than any fertilizer you can buy at the store. During our session about composting, Iesha said, “The fertilizers at stores are trying to mimic the worm tea, and make you spend your money, when you can make your own fertilizer in your backyard.” Having a compost bin in your backyard will benefit you in many ways, you have fertilizer for you plants, your soil will be richer, and you have a place where you can put your old moldy food that you never ate. Composting makes a huge difference, that’s why I decided to create a picture of my garden with compost box in it.
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Take The QUIZ!!
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Caroline The Garden Above me 12 birds hop from telephone wire to wire they blissfully fly away beside me purple, orange, and yellow cacti stare at the sun a Bernese Mountain dog frolics by tugging at its owner's leash it stops for a minute and glances at me then it continues on smelling the flowers and dodging the bees all of the sudden a rolly-polly parades around my paper I trace him with my pencil and name him Max I scoop Max into my hand and place him on the delicate flower next to me He falls 3 inches to the soil and moves on the soil is a rich chocolaty brown moist and airy like chocolate cake it must smell good, but it's allergy season
Little Plant I dig my roots down down into the soil soil that's been there for millions of years soil that has seen generations of people I'm new in the world just staring off a little green shoot I have so far to go the possibilities are endless
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Garden Pandemonium
Mia
As I walk down the man made paths, My feet condense the soil beneath me. When I sit down, I smell the Rosemary, Lingering behind me wherever I go. The overbearing darkness of the clouds look down on me, Shadowing me the same are the tangled branches, Like ungroomed hair, Swaying in the rosemary filled wind. I push my hand into the ground, The sand leaves indents in my hand, Reminders of where I’ve been. I take a walk, shifting the soil, Hearing the birds composing their song. Then the cars, That weren’t noticeable before, Start to disrupt the stillness that the garden bestows.
Wild Uproar I remember walking on the beach where there were holes in the sand, These were crabs’ homes that I would cover with sand and disrupt. I imagine my world being covered with sand, Me, suffocating, my home disrupted. Now my home has been destroyed. Socks, water bottles, words, I throw anything, in anger that my home is gone. Yelling, taking things back, too flustered to say I’m sorry. The pandemonium going on in my mind is now more chaotic than ever. Everything is gone. I begin to uncover the holes.
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Vivian What’s Happening in the Garden Above me the tweeting and singing of birds echo, The Dark and gloomy clouds. What’s the farthest anyone can see? The clouds, or the trees, what about the sky. I turn hearing the rustling of leaves, The chattering of other people, and The buzzing of bees. The fresh and new scent with a hint Of mint lingers in the air. Tripping over nothing, I zone in on the Branching veins and hairs of the leaves. Snap! I spin on my heels seeing nothing but The dirt path, bushes, trees, flowers, and greens and yellows. Eventually seeing the roads, cars, and houses, I feel the freedom of finally being home.
The Cycle First the meet, Then I form, Later I take a trip out of the whole, And I grow, and grow, and grow some more. Sometime later, I wither away And fall to the ground Slowly sinking down, Mixing with the others.
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Dear Readers, My experience making this magazine has been an awful lot of stress, new experiences, and thrill. I think that this experience has taught me a lot about how much the soil affects our everyday lives. You don’t think about it when you’re walking around and stepping on plenty of organisms homes. As I mention in one of my poems, I didn’t realize that covering a little hole in the sand could disrupt the life of an organism that I wasn’t trying to hurt. There is plenty of life in the soil, sand, “dirt,” etc. We just don’t take the time to learn about it and truly understand what all of this is doing for us. The soil unit has helped me understand how my life is affected by soil, something I didn’t even consider that much or appreciate before. My magazine highlights the worm. When I was little, I used to dig through dirt and look for worms. The worms I would find would be about two inches long and they weren’t that thick either, yet we still called them Earthworms. Going through the soil unit and learning about this environmentally helpful organism has helped me understand that they do much more than just squirm through the soil and eat dead plants. It’s helped my six year old self realize that the worms I was digging up weren’t Earthworms, they were Red Wigglers. This is something I would’ve never known if I hadn’t put all the hard work and effort into the soil unit. My experience has taught me many things. From the fact that there are about 6,000 different types of worms in the world, to the fact that soil isn’t just dirt stuck to our shoes. It’s something that provides many things, including humans, with life. We take these little things like soil and the organisms that live in soil for granted. We don’t realize that the soil is actually contributing to human life. The stress and new experiences in the soil unit created thrill for me. This is what makes up my experience. I’ve never been down in Millard canyon and I’ve never seen a pile of mulch disappear so quickly. There are so many great experiences and memories that I have collected in this unit. I am now grateful for not only soil, but for the fact that the teachers took the time and effort to create a memorable experience that isn’t even part of the curriculum. Although I struggled to understand some prospects of the unit, I managed to understand it all and finish all of the projects with a proud amount of hard work and effort put in. Without this experience, would not have recognized that the soil is a lot more than just dirt under my shoe. Soil is a contributor to life. Sincerely, Mia
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Hi Readers, In May of 2015 the Westridge class of 2020 did a unit about soil. We learned about the importance of soil, and how it is necessary for our everyday life. We use it without even knowing it. we often don’t pay attention to the little things that make up our life and our world. Before this unit I didn’t really appreciate the soil. I really didn’t think about it, but it has a story too. This is soil’s story: It started as bedrock many years ago. It was very hard and solid. Then over time the rock started to break down into smaller rock segments. this stage would be like a big sheet of rock and on top of that an equal layer of gravel. Then through weathering and erosion the rock formed three layers. bedrock, gravel and rock dust. Soon simple plants started to grow on the top layer. when they died decomposers returned the plants nutrients to the ground forming the fourth layer. Now we have four layers bedrock, horizon c, horizon b, and horizon a (a is the top, b is the 2nd and so on). so now the top layer has lots of nutrients and complicated plants such as trees and flowers now grow there. every time one dies the organisms that live in the soil decompose the remains and transfer the plants nutrients back to the soil. Now it’s the soil’s turn to give back. Here are just some of the things soil does to give back. Soil helps us grow healthy food with lots of nutrients. It helps grow all of the forest and greenery around the world, and it provides oxygen. It also gives shelter for many living organisms. Soil is the foundation for our homes and buildings. We need it for work and shelter. We use it for recreation, like in playgrounds, for soccer and other outdoor sports. It also preserves our history by beholding artifacts and memories from many many years ago. Well, I bet you didn’t know this much about soil, did you? I didn’t know this either, but I’m glad I know this now because I now appreciate the soil. I don’t just think of it as the ground beneath my feet. Sincerely, Caroline
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Dear People Who Actually Bothered to Read This, For the past week and a half, the seventh grade students have been learning about soil in the Westridge Middle School Soil Unit. During the soil unit we went on three field trips; the first to the Arlington Gardens, where we wrote our very own poem, traveled a labyrinth, and learned where in the garden had the most bacteria. The second was The Ron Finley Garden in South Central Los Angeles, where we got to see all of his plants on the small strip off land in front of his house. The night we came back from Ron Finley’s Garden, we had a homework assignment to research these questions: Why does soil matter?, and How is soil formed?. You might think you know a lot about soil, but you might not. Everybody thinks soil is just… there, like, oh, I see soil, not that big of a deal right. NO!, because guess what people, without soil, you wouldn’t be here standing on this Earth, reading my probably horrible description of the Soil Unit. Trees and plants, which come from soil, make the oxygen you breathe, and in case you haven’t noticed, you kind of need air to survive. Since we learned the process of soil forming, we made our own poem about how we celebrate ourselves and how we connect to the Earth and the soil. Lastly, we went to Millard Canyon where we had to do child labor, just kidding, we shoveled woodchips from a pile into buckets to spread across the ground, (it isn’t called mulch until it is spread across the ground). That night after toughening my arm muscles we researched about threats to soil; you might be thinking, there are threats to soil, but it’s everywhere?. Surprisingly there is, soil erosion is when the topsoil gets washed or blown away, or when the land is misused. Our first lesson from the Soil Unit was about Food Deserts. A food desert is an area or place where food is either not a good quality/not nutritious or not affordable. USDA's Economic Research Service estimated that about 23.5 million people live in a food desert, and more than half of them are low-income.
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Following up on food deserts, we make a propaganda poster to try and convince people to eat healthy, although they might live in a food desert and have a low-income. Our other lesson was a rotation with learning about composting, bird watching, learning about trees, putting mulch around trees and plants, and looking at different soil and worms under microscopes. My favorite thing about the Soil Unit was taking pictures. Something that I learned from the Soil Unit and will take with me is to never judge a book by its cover. Before the Soil Unit, I thought that the soil was something that I saw every day, not something that is basically your whole life. For me the hardest thing about the Soil Unit was the nightly reflections, I just couldn’t think of any challenges to write down. Learning about new concept had always been kind of hard for me, so I was proud that I learned a lot from this year’s Soil Unit. I honestly didn’t think that I would be able to type this much. When I saw one year’s example I freaked out because they all wrote like a page and a half, but it’s ok now. So yeah, the Soil Unit was an awesome experience to have, and I loved every single second of it. If I could do it again I would. Sincerely, Vivian