Question: How do worms affect the decomposition of apple cores, banana peels, and

orange peels?

Rationale: We can compost our materials in a healthy way instead of trashing our food for no reason.

What we know from our research: CT: Worms at food compost which passes through their
body, and exits as compost, or as dirt. If the worms eat nutrient-rich scraps, they produce
nutrient-rich dirt. One thing that you need for worm composting is very moist dirt, and a large
container, and the dirt should not be potting mix, because that dirt absorbs water. The
potting mix doesn’t keep water, which means the worms won’t get any moisture and will dry
up and die. SP: Every day worms eat from half of their body weight to their full body weight.
Worms like to eat leaves, fruit, and sometimes other animal waste. When they do this, it
makes the soil healthy. MB: Without worms it takes one month for an apple core to
decompose. Depending on the environment, it can take an orange peel up to six months to
decompose. For a banana peel, it could take up to two years. PY: Everyday, worms will
produce from the soil. They eat waste from animals, fruit, and dirt. When they eat dirt, some
big clump of hard rock (poop) comes out of the worms. When they poop, it adds rich soil and
they eat all the litter cleaning our Earth.
Sites we used for research:

CT: http://compost.css.cornell.edu/worms/basics.html

SP: https://unclejimswormfarm.com/the-role-of-worms-in-our-ecosystem/

MB: https://homeguides.sfgate.com/banana-peels-orange-peels-garden-31257.html

PY: The Difference Between Earthworms and Nightcrawlers | Hunker

Our Hypothesis:
CT: I think that the bin with the worms will decompose faster because worms eat the scraps the scraps
pass through the worm’s body and comes out as compost. (Dirt)

MB: I think the bin with worms will decompose faster because in my research it says that worms like to
eat any compost.

SP: I think the worms will help decompose the fruit because they make tunnels and they must eat the
dirt so maybe that will make the fruit decompose faster.

PY: I think that the bin with worms will decompose faster. I think that because worms eat them. Then,
since the dirt also decomposes, they will double the speed of the decomposition. Worms composting
are called vermicomposting.
Materials:

12 Earthworms, Two Gro Bricks, spray bottle, apple cores, bananas peels, orange peels, two bins, heavy-
duty tape, dirt, scissors, water, and a sharpie.

Facts about Earthworms:

Their lifespan is 6 to 9 years. Earthworms can get as big as 3 feet long. The big ones are found in
Australia. Depending where you cut it, it can regrow a little bit. There are 7,000 species. Worms breath
through their skin, they have no lungs. Worms don’t drown. On a daily basis, a worm can eat 1/3 of its
own weight!

Steps of our experiment

1.) Take out two Gro-Bricks and put one in each of the two bins.
2.) Then add water so it is a centimeter over the Gro-Bricks
3.) Keep turning over and scraping edges off the brick until the dirt is soft and fluffy.
4.) Evenly divide the fruit to the two bins and mix the fruit in, then add all the earth worms in one bin.
5.) Write “No Worms” on the bin with no worms.
6.) Cover the two bins with heavy duty tape.
7.) Check on the two bins every two days to write down which one decomposed faster.

Our Results:

Day 1 Day 3
When we put the worms in, they started digging The worms are not visible because they are
down. completely covered. We see fungus start to
grow on the bananas. The bananas are brown,
and the apples look too ripe. The oranges look
good on the outside, but on the inside they
look moldy.

Last Day
The bin with no worms had all the fruit still in
there. Each fruit had lots of fungus. It was clear
that the fruit did not decompose. The bin with
the worms had no fruit except the banana peels
and the apple. We accidentally forgot to take
out the stickers for the oranges. So, we found a
sticker in the bin with the worms. But in the bin
with the worms we couldn’t find worms, so we
think the worms decomposed too. The dirt with
the worms was richer and was fluffier.

Names of experts we contacted:

Conclusion

Looking at our results, our original hypothesis was correct and wrong. One way we know it is wrong is
that the worms themselves decompose. We think that they died because we searched the whole bin of
dirt and we couldn’t find the worms.We think this happened because their life span is short, or they died
because of the fungus growing in the bins. We know that our hypothesis is also correct is that the bin with
the worms had no fruit except the apple. Another interesting that that happened was that the banana
peels in both bins didn’t disappear. I think this was because the peel isn’t the actual fruit. But, in
conclusion, it turns out that the bin with worms decomposed faster. If I were to do this again, two things I
would change would be don’t put so much fruit and add more worms.