Wednesday, April 22nd, was the annual Earth Day extravaganza in the Wildcat garden at Our Redeemer Lutheran School!  As part of Earth Day each year, the students—age 2 through 6^th grade-- released ladybugs into our garden as a form of eco-friendly, organic pest control.  We released over 15,000 ladybugs!  In addition, fresh cut herbs and veggies were sold to support the garden fund.  This year we added a special project: the students began constructing a Monet masterpiece out of plastic bottle caps to hang on our cinder block wall outside.  The piece will replicate Monet's "Garden at Argenteuil (The Dahlias)."  This serves as a fantastic example of how to re-purpose everyday items into a thing of beauty for all to enjoy, instead of just discarding them into the trash. 

Amanda Schulz and Susan Cooper, Wildcat Garden Co-Chairs put it this way: “It is a fun time for the kids and a reminder of how we can serve to be better stewards of God's planet that he has entrusted to us.

The next day, in keeping with Earth Day, the school welcomed Apprentice Bee Keeper Jerry Alcorn to do his presentation on bees for 1st through 6th grades. 

Sixth grader Leila says they “learned about the different kinds of bees, the inner workings of the hive, and pollination.” 

Max and Joseph added, "We learned that drones get kicked out of the hive by the females during the winter--and they die. And Africanized bees are dangerously aggressive."

The fun concluded with a delicious “build your own ladybug” cupcake affair, and a good, environmentally friendly time was truly had by all!

Our Redeemer Lutheran School’s Art program is very committed to celebrating cultural diversity.  Recently the students completed a special project based on the very inspiring story of artist Tyree Guyton, who has, over the past thirty years, turned his economically challenged neighborhood in Detroit into an incredible outdoor art gallery.  This renovation is called “The Heidelberg Project”.

ORLS Art teacher, Ema Johnson, described her adaptation to the project this way:

“In class, we talked about what you can do to change a difficult situation when it looks like you don't have any tool available except for your creativity.  We basically did what Mr. Guyton did: we used trash to make something beautiful and worked all together in a friendly way. All classes loved this project, some asked me to do this every week (!), but the sixth graders particularly were blown away by it and had many questions. So I decided to reach out to Mr. Guyton and see if he could answer some written questions by email. A member of the museum's staff immediately answered me the next day saying:  ‘We are so happy to hear that you and your students were inspired by Tyree's work all the way in Dallas! Stories like yours are the reason we do what we do.’” 

And an artistic relationship was born!  Here are some pictures from the Detroit project as well as from the students at ORLS.