Allies in STEM and Green Bear Coalition partnered for a day of painting flower pots and wooden coasters in the Lewis Science Center atrium, presenting students with the chance to work creatively, relieve stress and combine scientific interests with art.
Students appreciated the pleasant weather and the new atrium mural as they worked on their art.
“It’s a nice day, and it’s really pretty out here, I mean who wouldn’t want to look at it [the atrium],” Becca Chamoun, Green Bear Coalition president said.
Others felt like the event provided a great opportunity to get outside and relieve stress after exams.
“I think we all needed to go outside after exams in the green area after our horrible exams and hit the reset button,” Brittany Jones, graduate assistant of Green Bear Coalition, said.
Eli Wess, treasurer of Allies in STEM thought of the idea to combine creative freedom with subject interest after having leftover craft supplies.
“I came up with the idea of it because I had bought these little wood canvases last semester, and I was like, wait a minute, we should have a wood painting event. So it was my idea, and then I ended up making the flyer for it and helping with advertising it. I wanted them [students] to paint something in biology that interested them and sort of a way to like, get their interests out physically and I thought that would be helpful,” Wess said.
Graduate student and Green Bear Coalition member Torrie McFail was inspired to paint an elephant on a flower pot in honor of their friend’s work with an elephant sanctuary.
“My friend, Brittany, actually has an elephant sanctuary that she worked on, and I thought I would paint this for her,” McFail said.
Allies in STEM hosted previous painting events in fall 2023 and wanted to make use of their supplies while also helping to build up the STEM community at UCA.
“This started with us having a bunch of leftover paint and wondering what to do with it. We had a pumpkin-painting event last semester and we thought it’d be really fun to just get everyone together and, you know, hang out and paint and kind of have this collab event with the Green Bear Coalition.
“We have a lot of science RSOs but we don’t often collaborate, so I thought this would be like a really cool opportunity for us to kind of hang out outside and paint together, and do a lot of community building was kind of the main goal and just letting people connect,” Allies in STEM President David Adams said.
The combination of art and nature was appealing to some students, like Vice President of Allies in STEM Erin George, who enjoyed seeing participants’ paintings.
“I love painting and being outside and this is both of those, so I was like, ‘Oh, this is great’. Besides, I wanted to come support the RSO, and I love it. It’s really cool seeing what people are painting,” George said.
The event was Allies in STEM’s last spring 2024 event, but Green Bear Coalition has at least one more on the calendar.
“We’re doing worm grunting on Earth Day [April 22] at our normal meeting time, 5:30 p.m., in the Jewel Moore Nature Reserve,” Jones said.
