Mississippi Mobile Farm travels to promote alternative energy, sustainability

Imagine the Magic School Bus. Now add a chicken coop, a garden and some blueberry bushes. While this bus doesn’t fly or travel through time, it does operate entirely on used vegetable oil and solar power.

That’s exactly what six recent graduates from the Mississippi School of Math and Science created with the Gaining Ground Sustainability Institute of Mississippi.

Daniel Doyle, a volunteer for Gaining Ground, wanted to start a chapter of the organization in Oxford and create a project that would combine all the ideas of sustainability in an educational, yet fun way. He came up with the idea of a “farm on wheels” 

“This was kind of my idea to get all agriculture, organic farming, rain-water harvesting, soil building and composting as well as renewable energy into one mobile unit that can go to schools throughout the state and teach all of those things to students that may not be able to access examples of those models elsewhere,” Doyle said.

As Gaining Ground began planning for the project, Doyle found an unexpected partner for his project during a conversation with a former student.

“A former student of mine wanted to talk about his future plans,” Doyle said. “I asked him what he was doing this summer and he told me that he and five of his friends from MSMS had purchased a school bus that they were going to convert to biodiesel and take around the country.” 

That was two days after Doyle had presented the project to Gaining Ground and he knew this was a perfect fit. He traveled to the student’s graduation the next day to meet the group and proposed combining their idea with his mobile farm.

The students became the project team, known as the Green 6, and moved to Oxford a week after graduation to start on the project. In three weeks, they converted the engine to biodiesel and installed a solar panel, incubator, worm tea bin and compost tumbler, essentially turning into a self-sustaining, rolling greenhouse. 

Before taking the bus cross country, the team did a test run through Mississippi. They stopped in Jackson, Mosspoint, Hattiesburg, Starkville, as well as several locations in Oxford.

“They did a presentation at the Boys and Girls Club here in Oxford and the kids absolutely loved it,” Doyle said. “That was kind of a dry run to make sure the fuel system of the bus is working fine but also so they knew how to go about presenting these things to a group of children.”

The team will be traveling for a month, visiting boys and girls clubs, youth groups and summer camps in Santa Fe, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago and Las Vegas.

A seventh student is traveling with the team, photographing and documenting their experience on the project’s website at www.msmobilefarm.com.

“They’re going to be blogging all along the way so anyone that wants to can follow their trip and see how they’re doing,” Doyle said. “I’m sure there are going to be some problems they come across and some troubleshooting.”

The goals of the road trip are to teach about renewable energy and sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels, raise awareness, as well as to raise $12,000 to begin Phase II of the project.

Phase II entails installing a greenhouse roof on the bus, a rainwater catchment system that will be used to irrigate the garden that will be planted inside of the bus and the building of a chicken coop.

Through their online Kickstarter campaign, the project has raised $2,000 and has received three $1,000 pledges. They hope that through the course of the cross country trip, the bus will generate enough media attention to raise the remaining $6,000 they need to finish the project.

Once Phase II of the bus is complete, it will remain in a central location, either in Oxford or Starkville, and will be used as a teaching tool for the state of Mississippi. Schools and organizations will be able to request the bus. 

“The goal is to have schools not have to pay,” Doyle said. “It will be a free service for the bus to come and do a day of teaching and education.”

It may not be the Magic School Bus but it is helping to educate students about sustainable and renewable energy in an entertaining way.