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Hills-Beaver Creek Elementary fifth-graders used teamwork to complete a painting project for the city of Beaver Creek.
Each year public works supervisor Travis Helgeson gives the city’s two snowplow blades a coat of paint to help the snow slide off the curved surfaces.
This year he asked the H-BC fifth-graders and teacher Dylan Gehrke to do the painting for him.
However, the students needed to come up with a design.
H-BC art instructor Isabel Sylvanie assisted in the first-time project.
“This project has been done in many cities including Sioux Falls,” she said. “We are very excited to bring this idea into H-BC and turn it into a tradition.”
The students focused on the school’s yearlong theme of “Level Up,” a video game term that requires players to complete a series of obstacles before they “level up” to the next obstacle series.
The theme focuses on rewarding positive behaviors.
Students earn points that can be redeemed for fun items or activities.
The blade project focused on positive teamwork.
“There is so much sensitivity and empathy that each student has to apply to be successful in a team,” Sylvanie said.
Each student designed an idea and shared the design with classmates.
Because the school’s “Level Up” theme is often depicted as going through levels of a video game, the students chose Mario Brothers as a design.
Sylvanie spent Friday outlining the snow blade with the students’ chosen design. On Monday students took turns filling in the sketches with paint.
“We learned that when we have disagreements in a collaborative project like this, we need to listen, put ourselves in the other person’s shoes, understand there is no right answer, and morph our ideas to fit everyone, if possible,” she said.
Helgeson and his wife, Kenzie, painted the city’s second snow blade, also using Mario Brothers and “Level Up” as a theme.