Spring Branch ISD Featured News

Students at two Spring Branch ISD elementary schools took part in a growing world art and literacy project called Pinwheels for Peace recently.

The children’s project aims to “plant” pinwheels decorated with personalized messages of peace in local schoolyards across the nation and around the world on the same date every year, Sept. 21, which is also observed as the International Day of Peace.

The Pinwheels for Peace project was born as an art installation 13 years ago by two art teachers in Coconut Creek, Fla., as a way for students to express their feelings related to what is happening in the world and in their own personal lives.

In its first year, teachers Ann Ayers and Ellen McMillan estimated that 1,325 sites in the world were spinning 500,000 pinwheels. In 2017, best estimates are that locations rose to 3,500 sites and that as many as 4.5 million student pinwheels were spinning in North and South America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Australia, all on the same date.

For the seventh year in a row, every student at Woodview Elementary took part in the art project, which also coincides with the International Day of Peace, by placing pinwheels in front of the north side campus.

In addition, students and teachers dressed in 1960s-era clothing styles. Parents visited and also attended a Crime Stopper presentation focused on keeping kids safe from the threat of cyberbullying. Two Spring Branch ISD Police officers also spoke to students.

During a special celebration, the Woodview Choir and students performed a peace song together. Art teacher Kathy Frith noted in morning announcements that week activities included ways for students to create peace inside their own school.

A Peace Day Challenge created by KidsforPeaceGlobal.org was another student option.

At Wilchester Elementary School, meanwhile, nearly 800 students created pinwheels for display and placement throughout the west side school.

“Wilchester students created pinwheels of all shapes and sizes,” said art instructor Sara Long. “They visually expressed their feelings through art on both sides [of the pinwheel]. Students assembled their pinwheels, and on the International Day of Peace “planted” all of them around campus as a public statement and art exhibit and installation.”

The Pinwheels for Peace project is designed to be nonpolitical – peace can be linked to war and national conflict, but also reflect an end to violence or intolerance in our regular daily lives, or even something as simple as individual peace of mind.

For more information, please visit http://www.pinwheelsforpeace.com.