BANGOR, Maine — Elementary school students in Bangor started painting a mural dedicated to pollinators on Monday, in collaboration with nonprofit Bangor Beautiful.
More than 150 students are painting the mural that will be 12 by 24 feet and cover a wall on the outside of Abraham Lincoln School.
"It's really fun. I really like art. It's one of my favorite things. It's amazing," Astraea Harrington, second-grader at Abraham Lincoln School, said.
Kids got the chance to get outside and get creative.
"Very exciting, and I love to paint," second-grader Cece Weitkamp said.
The mural was designed by Maine Artist Peter Walls with help from Abraham Lincoln students.
Walls said that students drew hundreds of pictures and about 50 were included in the design.
"It's fun, and I think that's for me the important part, is giving them the inspiration and confidence, and you can already see it from an hour of painting," Walls said.
Bangor Beautiful's goal with initiating the project is to educate students and the public about the importance of nature and pollinators.
"We gotta have these pollinators in the world, and they are declining, so we gotta start thinking about that," Bangor Beautiful President Annette Dodd said.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, pollinators are responsible for about a third of the food we eat.
Bangor Beautiful is not only educating students about art, but about how they can help protect bees.
"Trying to really think about the native plants and think about how you can do small things that can improve the population," Dodd said.
In class, students watched videos and were taught about pollinators.
According to Principal Shannon Shaw, working on this mural is a great opportunity for students to learn more about science in a creative way.
"Sometimes art is the way that some of our students best express their talents and show what they have learned," Shaw said.
Weitkamp said her family keeps bees, so she had fun learning more about them through this project, sharing the important things to know about bees.
"If you don't flail, they won't get angry at you, and they won't sting you," she said.
The mural will be completed this week and hung up over the weekend after every student gets the chance to paint part of it.