Source: WILDTV: "The Animals We Live With"
Funding for the VITAL/Ready to Teach collection was secured through the United States Department of Education under the Ready to Teach Program.
In this video segment from WILD TV, learn about 14-year-old Abigail Harden and her fascination with worms. She describes them as her first pets. She estimates there are about 50,000 worms in her local community garden. By eating organic matter, worms provide rich nutrients through their feces to help the plants grow. As they move through the soil they also provide aeration and drainage for the roots of the plants. Spreading fruit pulp around the plants to feed the worms draws them to the plants. The worms reproduce rapidly and hibernate in the winter by burrowing deep into the ground.
Download and ShareThe following Frame, Focus and Follow-up suggestions are best suited for elementary or middle school students using this video in an English language arts or science lesson. Be sure to modify the questions to meet your students' instructional needs.
What is Frame, Focus and Follow-up?
Frame (ELA) What is the difference between a fact and an opinion?
Focus (ELA) Distinguish between the facts and opinions about worms in this segment. In particular, pay attention to the descriptive words used by Abigail when she talks about worms.
Follow Up (ELA) Compare what you believed to be facts and opinions in the video segment. How does the way we describe something help express whether we are talking about something factually or whether we are expressing our opinion? How does our language (vocabulary, tone of voice) differ? Practice phrasing opinions to convince someone they are factual. Can you phrase facts to sound like opinions? What does this tell us about facts and opinions and communicating with others?
Frame (SCI) How do you think worms would benefit a garden?
Focus (SCI) What are some ways the worms in this garden help the plants?
Follow Up (SCI) All organisms (including humans) cause changes in their environments. These changes can be beneficial or detrimental. Discuss the relationships that exist among organisms and their physical environment. For example, as an organism how do you affect your physical environment and how does it affect you? What might happen in this garden if pesticides were introduced, the human caregivers no longer cared for the garden, or the worms reproduced too rapidly to be supported by the environment? What other circumstances can you think of that would affect the worms?
ABIGAIL HARDIN: My name is Abigail Hardin and I’m 14 years old. I’ve grown up in this garden pretty much seems all my life.
One thing I’ve always been fascinating with is worms and the ground. It’s always been known to me they’ve been beneficial to the plants and to the earth I’ve learned more about them through school I took biology which I took this year and from just being around helping my mom plant in the ground. It’s, it’s really cool like they were my first pet and when I was like in the first grade I had 4 of them in a jar with just some dirt and some air holes stuck in the lid.
In this whole entire garden, there’s probably about 50,000 or more worms. I really like the fact that they are really kind of slimy. I think they do have a personality like their they really kind of spunky just like fun creatures you know like just kinda like they do these movements.
They crawl around and not only do they dig into the ground just like moving, it aerates the soil and it also provide for better drainage.
When they eat, eat organic matter or the dirt. When they go like, like go to the bathroom, it ends up their feces are so rich in nutrients all it’s doing is helping the plants in the ground and aeration and all of that.
Night crawlers eat actual dirt. These are red wigglers these are different from the night crawlers. These live mainly in the leaf part of the ground. You won’t find these deep down in the dirt they like the sun and they stay up in warmer temperatures they eat all organic matter.
And if you see like look there’s like so many worms here and it shows how good the soil is and you can really see it and just the lightness of the soil how it just kind of crumbles but not crumbles and dry it’s really moist. They have this band around the head, its always closer to the head it’s called the clitellum. And that’s actually where they reproduce. But you know it’s the head because that’s closest or you could also tell by which direction they are going.
They reproduce a lot and so they can have up to 1 to 5 babies in one egg so therefore their population grows rapidly.
Night crawlers can’t survive a freeze but they hibernate they burrow down and hibernate over the winter.
This is what we like to call worm candy. It’s fruit pulp from our local juicer on 9th Avenue they absolutely adore it. They come and they eat it. They end up producing their castings right around your plant right where this pulp was so you have your fertilizer exactly where you want it and you know all you had to do is put this just around the plants. It’s amazing. It becomes such a more a lush full of life plant. Okay..
It’s really helped me to look at our whole entire environment as a whole and have these little things, how you would think you know, are disgusting, have like no purpose you know it’s like, why are they even here? It just shows you have like every organism is important and has a role.
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