BIGLER – A preschool hallway has recently come to life through visual art at CenClear in Bigler.
West Branch High School art and technology education teacher Rachel Steffan partnered with CenClear to create nature-based murals throughout the Head Start hallway.
She and five high school students spent just under two months working on six large-scale paintings.
The children returning to school this month will be greeted by the visually-intriguing floor-to-ceiling imagery.
The paintings, however, go beyond aesthetic appeal. They are intended to affect very real benefits for the students.
Preschool classrooms are often populated with bright colors that can be over-stimulating for children.
This is in spite of research that indicates being in nature and around nature objects or imagery can have a significant positive impact on children’s emotional development.
Working to capitalize on the calming effects of nature for Head Start students, CenClear shared its vision with Steffan.
Through research, brainstorming and countless sketches, she was able to bring the vision from imagination to reality.
The preschool children will recognize some of the plants and animals in the murals, as Steffan focused the designs on species native to central Pennsylvania.
Being immersed daily among creatures like a monarch butterfly, luna moth, ants and snails painted on a massive scale will give the students a new perspective—to see the world through the eyes of an insect or small animal.
The murals are playful and fun, bright but not brash or overwhelming. They bring whimsy and purpose to the white cinderblock walls.
In addition to being enjoyable to look at, images such as the stages of a monarch butterfly’s metamorphosis is educational, as it is part of the preschool curriculum.
Steffan hopes to expand the murals next summer to include the many blank spaces that remain.
“I see the walls as a blank canvas with infinite potential, and that is exciting to me,” she said. “The enlarged, locally-sourced imagery is intended to facilitate increased awareness, or a shift in perspective, toward the fragile relationship between human beings and nature.”
Steffan said that, like the monarch metamorphosis, she aims to incorporate more imagery that can reinforce the prekindergarten curriculum.
She is pleased that the high school students had the opportunity to participate in a service-learning project such as this. “My students were a tremendous help during the painting process,” Steffan said.
“Knowing they contributed to something that will have a lasting positive impact is highly motivating and rewarding.”