Bears Participate in Pinwheels for Peace Project
0By: Rita Seal
Ever have a thought about feelings on war or peace or tolerance or cooperation or harmony or unity? There’s a way to express those feelings every year on Sept. 21. It’s called the Pinwheels for Peace Project.
Pinwheels for Peace was started in 2005 by Ann Ayers and Ellen McMillan. They were both art teachers at a high school in Florida.
They started this project to let students express their thoughts and ideas about what was going on in the world by creating something as simple as a pinwheel to help represent their ideals because it brings back childhood memories when life was simple and joyful.
This project helps engage the importance of peace in the world by allowing individuals to write things, draw things, color on them, make them big or small do with them as they please. They’re to be placed outside anywhere the wind can blow thoughts and feelings of other people’s opinions throughout the area.
University of Pikeville art professor Patricia Kowalok has been contributing to this project for about seven years now.
“I like to think of it as a reflection of global awareness in which the University does because it is a global activity, peace as a human race can do better,” Kowalok said.
She said she hopes to continue the project at the University as long as she keeps getting good outcomes from it.
Ella Smith, assistant professor of Spanish, had SPN 111 students made molinetes de paz (or pinwheels for peace). The students brought in lists of words in Spanish of the people, animals, places, things, etc. who/that give them peace and who/that they wish to have peace.
“They had really thoughtful reflections and made some pretty awesome pinwheels!” Smith said.