How elementary and high school students teamed up to send pieces of Silver Lake around the country
SILVER LAKE — What could Ella Day, Brooklyn Rupp and Colter Beam tell the world about Silver Lake, Kansas?
The Silver Lake Jr./Sr. High School juniors had been students in the district since kindergarten, and they understood the small, rural community well.
So when elementary school librarian Carrie Podlena asked high school art teacher Michaela Conley for help with a project to tell the story of Silver Lake Grade School, the art teacher knew exactly who could help.
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Podlena had entered the elementary school into a national “traveling mural” project, in which 10 schools around the country would design a 10-foot-long mural that would be cut up into just as many sections and sent to each school in the project.
The goal, Podlena said, would be for Silver Lake USD 372 students to learn about and make connections to students in other states. But if the students were to learn about other schools, then they’d also need to teach others about what Silver Lake and the people who live there.
That’s where the older students could help.
How students fit Silver Lake and Kansas onto 10-foot mural on butcher paper
The three students — who each contributed either a keen eye for visualizing designs, bringing them to life or putting them to paper, Conley said — had a challenge ahead of them, though.
How could they put Silver Lake, Kansas, on 10 feet of butcher paper?
“We picked out things from our community that really stood out, or things you might think of when you think about our town,” Day said.
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Coloring of the mural was left to the elementary school students, though, and the three high school students said the younger artists added just as much character to the mural in their bold, vibrant choices for colors.
At the center of the mural, the students put a big, strong buffalo, bordered on one end with block letters spelling KANSAS. On the ends, they put a windmill (which Rupp said reminded her of the country around the town) and the town’s recently repainted water tower.
“The kids could have done natural colors, but they went with bright, and it’s just so much fun,” Rupp said. “They put their own personality into it.”
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And although the mural was split into 10 pieces, the high school students still think the individual pieces can help other students around the country understand their district, using their imaginations to fill in any missing pieces.
“I hope the kids got to work together to create a piece that they’d be proud of as well, and know that they’re going to get to send this to someone who might not know too much about Kansas and show our heart to them,” Rupp said.
Traveling mural project can help students understand Silver Lake better
As of this month, Podlena has eight of 10 pieces of Silver Lake Grade School’s version of the piecework mural. Those pieces are now in display in the school gym, but not before Podlena talked with her students about the pieces and any accompanying information each participating school sent.
One school’s mascot was the giraffe, so all of its students drew and colored giraffes for their poster. Another school — Sippican Elementary School in Marion, Massachusetts —drew a big boat called the S.S. Sippican as a reference to the school’s location less than a mile from the coast of Buzzard Bay in New England. Podlena said she hopes to partner with Sippican to continue connecting students in a pen pal program.
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More than anything, though, Podlena said she and her students appreciate the help that the high school students gave in designing a mural for them.
“It’s just such a cool way for the students to see the opportunities they have at the high school, as far as classes like art and all that, but they can also learn about other students around the country, and what they’re doing,” Podlena said.
It’s all a part of how art can not only tell the world the story of a community, but it can allow the community to better understand itself, Conley said.
“Art has historically helped people tell the story of their culture,” the art teacher said. “It can be hard to see when you live in your town, but when you see it drawn out, it becomes part of who you are.”
Rafael Garcia is an education reporter for the Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached at rgarcia@cjonline.com or by phone at 785-289-5325. Follow him on Twitter at @byRafaelGarcia.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Silver Lake Elementary participates in national traveling mural project
