Worm garden highlights Mississippi Power grant project

GULFPORT, Miss. (WLOX) - Dig this. Melanie Davis’s class at Pass Road Elementary in Gulfport is adding a worm farm and a compost station to their ever-growing garden.

The dirty details of this come from Mississippi Power’s Environmental Education grant program. This year, 50 teachers around the company’s service territory received $28,000 in grant money.

“At Mississippi Power, we want to develop scientists. We want people that know how to think about what the future of energy is going to be and how that relates to the environment,” said Patrick Chubb, environmental affairs specialist with Mississippi Power.

Worm farms, compost stations, greenhouses and horticulture projects are some of everything that plants the seeds of having a green thumb and a green mindset with students and teachers.

“Mississippi Power was able to help us become worm farmers, so the students have been spending several months learning about worms, what the best worms are, how do we compost, what’s the difference between being a worm farmer and composting,” said Melanie Davis, gifted students teacher at Pass Road Elementary. “Every year we’ve been able to expand on that garden as the kids find new things they want to plant and research.”

In the environmental education grant program’s six-year history, more than 200 teachers in 23 counties have received $130,000 for environmental projects.

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