Three days a week, the Long Beach Island Grade School, in Ship Bottom, offers a Personalized Enrichment Program – PEP – for students. Peter Kopack, LBI Consolidated School District superintendent and LBI School principal, said the program “compares to an elective class, where students have the choice to pick something that interests them. These classes engage in alternative and authentic learning experiences.”

One of the courses the youngsters can pursue via PEP involves hydroponic gardening.