LEVEL CROSS — A senior project has resulted in an artistic donation to Level Cross Elementary School.

Dorothy Harris, a senior at Randleman High School, wanted to incorporate both art and children in her senior project. Marilyn Carter had been her art teacher at Randleman Elementary and now teaches at Level Cross.

“She helped me a lot to like art,” Harris said of Carter. So Harris asked Carter to be her senior project mentor.

At the time she was deciding on a project, Harris said, she was considering art education as a career. “I wanted the opportunity to work with children,” she said.

What better way to do that than to enlist some of Carter’s fifth-grade students to assist with the art project? Harris chose a mural for her project and decided it would be a map of North Carolina.

“I had the children in her class to name off state symbols,” she said. “Then the children drew the symbols and I traced them on canvas.”

Harris returned to Level Cross several times so the children could help paint the state and its symbols. Among those are the state bird, state flower and wildflower, state dog, mammal and reptile. The map is divided into the three geographic regions.

The map and symbols not only helped fulfill Harris’s senior project but also reinforced what the students had learned in North Carolina studies. She said a dozen students were involved in the project, some staying after school to get it completed.

“The children helped me a lot,” Harris said. “They worked very hard and were very enthusiastic.”

They also helped her get a 98 on her senior project.

Last week Harris returned to Level Cross to officially present the mural to the school. It’s hanging on the wall of a hallway.

“Thank y’all for helping on this,” she told the art students. “Thanks to you I got an A on my project.”

“We’re so happy you decided to  give this to Level Cross,” Carter told Harris.