ORANGE : Students Build on Their Knowledge of Egypt

The 200 students at Eldorado School for the Gifted built themselves an art room that tried to duplicate the work of ancient Egyptians.

The project included paintings of Pharaohs, ceramic scarabs and row after row of small, brightly colored plastic mummies.

Teacher Wendy LaGreen, who helped the kindergarten through 12th-grade students build artwork, said she learned that such projects can be accomplished inexpensively.

And the students learned to be glad they didn’t live in the days of the Pharaohs.

“I don’t think it would have been enjoyable to build a tomb like that,” said Alexis Dubin, 10. “There were lots of people who were slaves and stuff.”

In the center was a four-foot pyramid tomb, complete with an altar, standing next to a pyramid “ruin” made of plaster bricks.

The artists intended the ruin to be a pyramid but, as LaGreen explained, “In art, we have to understand that what is in our head can’t always happen.”

The 9- to 10-year-olds who built it seemed to have had more fun mucking in wet plaster and carving hieroglyphics into the bricks. “It got all wet and it felt weird,” said Matt Burke, 10.

Many of the materials used were scavenged by students.

One table was lined with hunks of concrete that had been turned into painting fragments.

“You can do art on a shoestring,” LaGreen said. “We have a huge recycling program and the kids feel empowered because they didn’t have to ask their parents to buy something.”