Last week, year 3 got involved in a citizen science project in the secret garden discovering earthworms and their importance for healthy soil.

Digging for earthworms

We got mucky and dug holes to see what earthworms we could find in the topsoil, then poured in mustard water to encourage deep-living earthworms to come up to the surface. (No earthworms were harmed in this experiment!)

Unfortunately, the ground was incredibly dry and so we only managed to find 4 earthworms in total however we were able to classify these using the TeachEarth earthworm chart and we found we had a variety of soil-feeding, surface-feeding and deep-living earthworms, as well as a mixture of mature and immature worms.

We learnt that earthworms are important for plant growth as the tunnels they make underground help plants to get the water and nutrients they need to grow!

We also classified the type of soil found in the secret garden. It is a type of soil called loam which has a good mixture of large and small pieces. It has lots of nutrients and is excellent for plants to grow!