COOS BAY - Elementary students at Bay Area schools have a new hobby to try this spring. Students from one Bunker Hill Elementary School class weren't playing baseball or running the track this week. They were planting seeds and weeding soil.

Schools received $3,000 this year from the Coos County Master Gardeners Association. Grants awarded by Master Gardeners are surplus funds from the group's annual plant sale and will help fund gardens at area elementary schools throughout the year.

Volunteers from the association also are helping out in the gardens, showing students how to grow and maintain gardens.

"We really wanted to focus our efforts on Coos County," said past group coordinator Tracy Martz.

The $572 awarded to Bunker Hill paid for a compost bin, tools and soil.

Grants also will help fund an irrigation system at Madison Elementary School; tools, soil and a compost bin at Millicoma Intermediate School; lighting for a greenhouse at Ocean Crest Elementary School in Bandon; and a fence to protect a garden at North Bay Elementary School and Lighthouse School in Hauser.

At Bunker Hill, students are growing flowers, herbs and vegetables during organized planting days. They're learning to grow their own food, said first-grade teacher Lisa Hollenbeck.

But they also are curious about the plants and insects living in the garden.

"They do go out there and play around it," she said.