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“第一次没经验，
打开桶盖时我张着嘴。
结果桶里的小虫子一下子飞出来，
都钻进嘴里了。”
这是9年级的赵昳雲堆肥开桶的初体验。
没有想象中的“酷”；
没有立竿见影的成果；
只有剁碎果皮、菜叶、树叶时，
铲子的重复落下；
还有反复试错、等待发酵的漫长过程；
和意料不到的、来自小虫子的“生物袭击”。
堆肥项目，和青少年“兴趣来得快、去得也快”的特点几乎全部对冲。
然而，一群启明星的孩子，硬是在这个项目里坚持了近2年——
项目运行将近600天，初始团队不仅还在——9年级的周语歆、赵昳雲、张嘉琪，7年级的刘京卓、郑佳琦、戚芮然——队伍还壮大到20多人，项目也在北皋和三里屯校区两地开花。
这是一整套自给自足、还能为其他项目提供平台的社会创新系统！
坚韧
不管项目进行到哪一步，基础的工作一天也不会停——
坚持，是启明星学生DNA里的东西。
2024年10月开始，每个上学日的午饭后，雷打不动，堆肥项目的孩子都会陆陆续续聚集到操场北面的堆肥区。
厨房送来的餐前厨余——菜叶、果皮、咖啡渣——倒进大盆，他们用铲子一下下剁碎。
“剁、剁、剁。”
木屑、树叶、发酵土按比例加入，拌匀，一起装进发酵桶。
有人记录数据，有人盯着监控桶内温度的温度计，有人翻动桶里的材料。
动作是重复、琐碎的。
发酵的过程很漫长，
是一个完全依靠各种材料比例调控温度，
进而影响发酵的过程。
大约每两周是出肥的周期，
没有哪一桶发酵的结果是一模一样的，
但是对学生们来说，却是再真实不过的课堂：
遇到肥土不理想，孩子们会一起商量找出问题，
调整原料比例，重新来过。
真正的学习，往往就发生在结果无法预设的地方。
生长
在变化中学习知识的满足感和成就感把孩子们牢牢“粘在”。
一年半了，这个小组不但没有散去，反而扩展到20多人，项目也从北皋扩展到三里屯。
它已经不依赖任何个人持续推动，
而是形成了稳定运转的机制：
学校运营部门帮忙收集和运送餐前厨余
标准的切碎和配比过程
温度记录和反馈调整机制
新成员随时参与的丝滑路径
以及特别特别重要的——
孩子们销售肥土和肥液的资金用于维持项目的资金回流机制
堆肥不再只是一个环保项目，
而是一套能够自我延续、拥有生命力的校园公共机制。
这套机制带来了现实的结果：
一年多了，餐前厨余不再需要花一分钱运去外部处理，
校园的绿化肥料也不再采购，每年节省了近5万元的成本。
更直观的是校园本身的变化。
你注意到没有，
使用了100%的有机肥土肥液，
今年的草木更茂盛，花开得更密。
自然的环境把小刺猬也引来了！
更宝贵的是，项目还外延成一个开放的实验场：
11年级的李青源用堆肥桶内外的高温差做文章：
桶内温度能达到70多摄氏度，那么在冬天里，桶内外的高温差是不是可以转换成电能，储存起来，甚至设计成小型的充电装置？这些已经成为李青源的IB扩展论文的研究内容了。
这个夏天，孩子们用售卖肥土肥液的资金购买堆肥买了蔬菜种子，在校园西北角种下：
茄子、土豆、西玉米、南瓜，
时机成熟，下一步就会发展有机温室。
7年级PFC花园项目的学生也来照顾这片土地，从中学习种植知识，也培养合作、解决问题的创新能力。
项目的发展也少不了家长。她们也来为孩子们打气：有的捐助孩子们购买更多的堆肥桶，也有的在孩子们忙不过来的时候，来堆肥区帮忙。
外溢
系统的影响力开始外溢。
同样关注校园可持续发展的京西学校了解到启明星堆肥项目的成功，特意邀请孩子们前去分享经验；
知名的自然科普博主瘦叔也来到校园，和孩子们交流经验。
不只在社区内部，还为更广阔的社区带来启发和影响——至此——堆肥项目实现了最高目标的社会创新影响！
从果皮菜叶，到肥土新芽；
从校园一角的发酵桶，
到一整片正在酝酿的有机温室。
有价值的努力就是这样，
它不会在喧哗中骤然绽放，
而是低调的、持续积蓄力量。
孩子们没有追逐什么。
他们只是日复一日地重复琐碎的劳动，
把答案交给时间：
所谓成长，
不过是认真对待一件微小的事，足够久。
久到它能自己长出根系，开出花来。
Talk·Parenting｜最高效的学习，是孩子回答自己的提问
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“The first time we opened the compost bin, I had no idea what I was doing. I stood there with my mouth open — and suddenly, a swarm of tiny bugs flew straight into it.”
That is how ninth grader Yilin Zhao remembers opening a compost bin for the very first time.
There was nothing glamorous about it.
No high-tech equipment.
No instant results.
Just fruit peels, vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, the dull thud-thud of shovels chopping through waste, endless rounds of trial and error while waiting for fermentation, and the occasional unexpected “biological attack.”
Composting seems almost perfectly designed to clash with the stereotype of modern teenagers—quick to pick up interests, quick to abandon them.
And yet, a group of students at Daystar Academy spent nearly two years proving that stereotype wrong.
Nearly 600 days later, the original team is still here:ninth graders Arvea Zhou, Yilin Zhao, Susan Zhang, and seventh graders Angela Liu, Zoe Zheng and Helen Qi.
Not only has the project survived, it has grown.
The team has now expanded to more than 20 students, with composting projects flourishing at both the Beigao and Sanlitun campuses.
The composting project has grown into a self-sustaining social innovation ecosystem, one that empowers and supports other projects to take root and thrive.
Persistence
No matter what stage the project reaches, the basic work never stops.
Quiet persistence is part of Daystar students’ DNA.
Since October 2024, every school day after lunch, rain or shine, students involved in the composting project gather at the composting area on the north side of the field.
Kitchen waste from the cafeteria—vegetable scraps, fruit peels, coffee grounds—is dumped into large tubs. Students chop everything into smaller pieces with shovels.
Chop. Chop. Chop.
Wood chips and dry leaves are added in precise proportions, mixed together, loaded into fermentation bins and sealed.
The moment the lid opens, a wave of damp, fermented air pours out.
Some students record data.
Others monitor the thermometer tracking the internal temperature of the bins.
Others turn and aerate the material by hand.
The work is repetitive and messy.
The process is slow.
And fermentation is notoriously difficult to control.
Managing fermentation by adjusting the ratios of different materials to influence temperature feels, at times, like experimenting.
Roughly every two weeks, the compost is ready to be checked.
Sometimes it succeeds.
Sometimes it fails.
When it fails, the students gather together, identify the problem, adjust the ingredient ratios, and begin again.
There are failures. Fluctuations. Unpredictable outcomes.
No two batches ferment in exactly the same way.
But for the students, this has become one of the most authentic classrooms imaginable:
Real learning often happens precisely where outcomes cannot be predetermined.
Growing
What kept students engaged was the deep sense of satisfaction and accomplishment that comes from finding certainty within uncertainty.
More than a year later, the group has not faded away. Instead, it has expanded to more than 20 students, with composting systems established at both the Beigao and Sanlitun campuses.
The project no longer depends on any single person to keep it alive.
Instead, it has evolved into a stable, self-sustaining system:
The system now includes:
A consistent food-waste collection process supported by the school operations team
Standardized chopping and material-ratio procedures
Temperature tracking and feedback-adjustment systems
A smooth onboarding process for new student participants
And,perhaps most importantly, a financial reinvestment cycle sustained through student sales of compost soil and compost liquid fertilizer
The composting initiative is no longer simply an environmental project.
It has become a living campus system capable of sustaining itself and continuing to grow.
The school’s operations department soon began noticing measurable results:
For more than a year, the school has no longer needed to pay for external disposal of pre-consumer kitchen waste.
Nor has it needed to purchase fertilizer for campus landscaping.
The result: nearlyRMB 50,000 in annual savings.
Even more visible is the transformation of the campus itself.
Using 100 percent organic compost soil and liquid fertilizer,this year’s plants grew fuller, greener, and more vibrant than before.
The natural environment even attracted hedgehogs!
More importantly, the project has evolved into an open platform for experimentation.
Eleventh grader Neo focused on the significant temperature difference between the inside and outside of the compost bins.
If the temperature inside the bins can exceed 70°C, could that thermal difference in winter be converted into electrical energy? His long-term vision: a small charging device powered by compost-generated thermal energy.
These questions have now become part of Neo’s IB Extended Essay research.
Using profits from fertilizer sales, students purchased vegetable seeds and planted them in the northwest corner of campus.
Eggplants.
Potatoes.
Corn.
Pumpkins...
When the time is right, the next step will be the development of an organic greenhouse.
Students from the seventh grade PFC Garden Project now help care for the land as well, learning about cultivation while developing collaboration and innovation skills.
What began as a project for processing food waste has slowly become a project that nurtures life itself.
Parents are an essential part of the growth process as well. They began offering support. Some donated additional compost bins, while others volunteered in the composting area when students became overwhelmed with work.
Influence
The project’s influence has spread beyond campus.
Western Academy of Beijing, which also focuses on campus sustainability, learned about Daystar students’ success and invited them to share their experience.
Well-known nature education blogger Shou Shu also visited campus to exchange ideas with the students.
Not only did it inspire and impact its own community, but it also began influencing the broader community beyond the school — at this point, the composting project had achieved the highest level of social innovation impact.
From fruit peels and vegetable scraps to fertile soil and new sprouts; from a few fermentation bins tucked into one corner of campus to an entire organic greenhouse now taking shape.
This is what meaningful work looks like.
It does not erupt suddenly into dramatic success.
It grows quietly, steadily accumulating strength over time.
The students were never chasing recognition.
They simply returned, day after day, to the same small acts of labor, leaving the answer to be revealed by time itself.
Perhaps growth is nothing more than this: taking one small thing seriously for long enough—long enough for it to grow roots of its own, and eventually bloom.
Selectives
Talk·Parenting｜最高效的学习，是孩子回答自己的提问
Talk · Passion | 任云驰：我在美国看到的文科生就业
Talk · Passion | 什么专业，这么上头？
Talk · Passion | 准留美必看：美国大一新生的7x24小时
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