Our Research: Vermiculture

Finally, everything we had to do was done. One thing left to do for our research is making it hardbound. But before we graduate the course Research II, I would like to present what our study is all about; how we came up with the study and the experiences we had by doing the study.

But before everything else, let me define some terms you will encounter upon reading this entry further: African Nightcrawlers – they are a kind of earthworm that eats all kinds of organic matter and convert them into useful worm castings; Worm castings – these are the organic materials produced by the African Nightcrawlers. It is like worm castings is to earthworms as a dung is to a cow; Vermiculture – the process of growing healthy worms; Vermicomposting – the production of worm castings through Vermiculture.

As we all know for a fact, the population is still increasing and rising each year. This may cause various effects including the “too much garbage” we are having. But there is an answer to this problem which, at the same time, could help generate our income. That is the technology called Vermicomposting. It is a method of growing earthworms to breakdown organic matter and convert them into worm castings, which are good as an organic fertilizer. Yeah, it was indeed strange at first. We just knew about this topic because Prime and company’s project was all about this and it was just handed down to us. But even we did not like the topic much, considering the fact that we are going to deal with earthworms, we got excited about it and decided to take the challenge and do the said research. Prime and company’s study was about the effect of sol moisture in the growth of the African Nightcrawlers. And to avoid plagiarism, we had to think what other variable we are going to vary and decided on one other factor affecting the subjects’ growth, the kind of feed they ingest. And to make our study more credible, we decided to include the effect of the feeds on the production of worm castings.

Our study was done for around five weeks. Even though our study has insignificant results, which means the different feeds have comparable effect on the Nightcrawlers, we were still very much happy and glad that we finished it and had it hard bound.

People may say that this is but another ordinary school project. But it is not, at least for me, it is not. It is not just ordinary because we did not just do this for the sake of passing. We did this study with dedication and we did this by heart. Yes, I am amenable that because of much dedication, this study often caused misunderstandings and fightings among group members. But I think what we experienced as a group just made us closer together and made us know each other more.

For other people’s views, I am a leader but as what I have learned, I was never one. I was always the boss, telling my group mates to do this, ordering them to computerize this, commanding them to consult a teacher, and others. It may seem like a selfish act, but I guess it made our research study better and it made our paper good; not to mention that we placed third in the Science Congress. It may be not the best paper in the world. But for me, all the hardships and the experiences we had in making it made it the best.

We hope that everything goes fine in the last step of our research requirement and hope to pass it before the deadline…