Classrooms Are Going Green: Tell your faculty to take it outside.... How science class can reconnect kids with nature - "Not everyone uses garbage as a teaching tool, but maybe we should. Melina Kuchinov, a teacher at Green Woods Charter School in Philadelphia, dumps a trash can filled with compost onto a plastic bag spread on her classroom carpet. For weeks, her first-grade students have collected and composted banana peels, fruit rinds, and vegetables. Now, they are about to learn what happens to their food after they’re done with lunch. They separate dirt from composting trash with Popsicle sticks and examine the bugs that are eating their leftovers, recording their observations as they dig. After several weeks of composting, says Kuchinov, the students look forward to seeing what’s happening inside the trash bin."