On Tuesday, November 28, 2017 Mandi Stringer’s 7th Grade STARS Class presented an Art in the Park show for community members, educators, and their fellow Morris Upchurch Middle School students. Like with a science fair project, the Queen City accelerated learners attended and defended their creations to explain the specific reuse of materials, how the creation improved the pollinator garden’s function, and what the work of art meant to them. Each project was unique, made from recycled materials, and presented both artistic and scientific expression.

Science and art naturally overlap. Both are a means of investigation. Both involve ideas, theories, and hypotheses that are tested in places where mind and hand come together—the laboratory and studio. Artists, like scientists, study—materials, people, culture, history, religion, mythology— and learn to transform information into something else.

STARS students, left to right: Chauncett Miles, Chase Byrum, Faith Mahon and Sydni Brooke Davis defend their recycled art creations at Morris Upchurch Middle School in Queen City, Texas