When a former library board member and community activist (I’ll call her C for anonymity’s sake) approached me with an idea for a teen-led program related to climate change, I jumped at the opportunity to work with her. I’ve had a surfeit of teens interested in volunteering, and I knew they would love the chance to lead an event. Teens in my town are also incredibly interested in environmental causes. It seemed like a win-win.
The project was inspired by the book The Carbon Almanac, a community-created book all about climate change. There is an accompanying Educator’s Guide designed for classroom use that C helped design. Eager to test out one of the activities, she modified one related to food waste and compost for us to use at the library. We both loved the idea of having teens lead the charge since they are already passionate about this issue.
The activity was called “I Didn’t Eat the Whole Thing” and had two parts. First, C created a chart for participants to use to calculate what portion of the leftovers of their last meal was compostable, and what portion would be going to the landfill. We wanted to sneak in the food waste knowledge without the program feeling too much like school. Next, there was information about using your food waste at home to make your own tiny composter out of an old plastic cup/bottle. We provided cups and bottles, had a station where participants could decorate them, and then provided seeds they could take home to plant in their compost. We also had pre-prepared kits people could bring home as Take and Makes.
Here are the instructions we handed out for people to use at home:
We hosted the activity outside of the library on a Saturday morning that coincided with Farmer’s Market and ended up connecting with about 75 people. I had 10 volunteers running the show. Most of them had been trained in advance so they all had some good talking points to share about food waste, composting, etc. and felt knowledgeable enough to take charge. We mainly had younger kids who wanted to come chat with us and decorate planter bottles, but we talked to people of all ages and even adults were grabbing the Take and Make kits.
Normally my programs tend to be more silly and fun, but it was great to change it up and do something a little more educational, and the volunteers (I had about 10 total) did an amazing job. The program was low-cost too–cups and bottles were all donated by staff, the seeds were really cheap, and we used supplies on hand to decorate. This definitely inspired me to have more teen-led events in the future.
Teen Services Underground 