OAK HARBOR, Wash. – Students at a Washington elementary school turned waste created by Michelle Obama’s school food overhaul into an award from the U.S. Department of Education.

Hillcrest Elementary in Oak Harbor is showing students how to turn lunch waste into compost using worms, and the kids are really digging it. Younger students work with their older classmates to collect lunch waste and feed it to worms in special compost boxes, a combination that produces nutrient-rich worm casting for the school’s garden, the Whidbey News Times reports.

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There’s also chickens who live in a different courtyard with large windows along the school’s hallway.

The idea is to teach students about composting, gardening, recycling and the science behind it. The students collect data on their projects that’s shared with the state’s Department of Ecology, according to the news site.

“They are just going for it,” fourth grade teacher Jodi Crimmins said. “They are inspired.”

That’s undoubtedly a big reason why the U.S. Department of Education awarded the school its Green Ribbon distinction recently, one of only 35 elementary schools in the country to receive the recognition, the News Times reports.

But students have had a much less enthusiastic reception to “healthy” school food changes imposed by the government and championed by first lady Michelle Obama. More than 1.2 million students no longer eat lunch at school after restrictions on calories, fat, sugar, sodium and other nutritional elements rendered much of it unappetizing.

Another federal requirement as part of the changes forces students to take a fruit or vegetable every day, whether they want it or not, and many dump the greens in the garbage, which is resulting in billions in food waste.

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Students at Hillcrest recycled more than 1,000 pounds of that waste in their first worm bin so far, and hundreds of pounds more in a second bin, fourth grade teacher Jodi Crimmins told the News Times.

The project is engaging students in science and encouraging them to incorporate what they learn into a more ecofriendly lifestyle at home, principal Paula Seaman said.

“The complete ownership of learning is on the students,” she said. “It is actually the most empowering thing I have seen in my 25 years in education.”

Students think it’s really cool they’re turning their government-issued lunches into fresh produce.

“All this food we’re not eating is turning into stuff we can eat,” fourth-grader Jada Miller told King 5. “It’s like a weird cycle. It’s fascinating.”

Hillcrest students don’t actually get to eat the freshly grown food, of course, they’re still stuck with Michelle O lunches. The news site reports the school-grown produce is given away to a local food bank with the eggs from the chickens.

Regardless, the program and national recognition is convincing other schools in the district to start their own programs, according to King 5.