A mural now graces the entrance of Departure Bay Eco-School thanks to the efforts of elementary and secondary school students.
According to Liz McCaw and Margie Radigan, Departure Bay kindergarten program teachers, the mural came together with the assistance of Jean Kloppenburg, Nanaimo District Secondary School art teacher, who taught at Woodlands Secondary last year.
The mural, which is made up of clay tiles, was created by younger Departure Bay students and older Woodlands students.
“We gave every child a very small piece of baking clay and they first had to do a sample tile either from the beach or the forest,” Radigan said. “They brought that sample with them to help guide their [high school partner] in case they were shy, didn’t know what they wanted to do.”
Sand dollars, octopi, nuts, acorn leaves and logs were among the items students chose for the mural.
The project was a learning experience for the students, said McCaw.
“They were working on collaborating with another person, so they were working together to come up with a design for their tile,” McCaw said. “There was a lot of conversation, oral language, going back and forth.”
“Also, we do a lot of place-based learning, so that mural represents their two outside classrooms, which is [the] forest and the seashore,” said Radigan.
Radigan said the mural is ideally located as well, as it is an entrance for the school’s three kindergarten classes.
“That is their area. That is their entrance to their school and it’s almost like they own it,” said Radigan.
Kloppenburg said it was good to create something with a variety of grades.
“For me, it’s always a cool thing to create communities through the arts and clay is a great way to do that,” Kloppenburg said.
reporter@nanaimobulletin.com