West Chicago students to create Pinwheels for Peace

Students and staff at West Chicago's Indian Knoll Elementary School plan to take part in an international art and literacy project, Pinwheels for Peace, by planting pinwheels with messages of peace on the school grounds.

Pinwheels for Peace is an art installation project started in 2005 by art teachers Ann Ayers and Ellen McMillan of Coconut Creek, Florida, as a way for students to express their feelings about what's going on in the world and in their lives.

In the first year, groups in more than 1,325 locations throughout the world planted about 500,000 pinwheels. Last year, more than 4.5 million pinwheels were spinning in more than 3,500 locations in the United States, Europe, Asia, Australia, Canada, the Middle East, Africa and South America.

Art teacher Kirsten Snodgrass is coordinating Indian Knoll's Pinwheels for Peace project, making it the eighth year Indian Knoll has participated.

The project is nonpolitical and not intended as a statement about the conflict of war. Rather, it looks at how peace can be related to violence and intolerance in our daily lives, to peace of mind.

The project aims to promote this definition of peace: "a state of calm and serenity, with no anxiety, the absence of violence, freedom from conflict or disagreement among people or groups of people."

The students at Indian Knoll Elementary School will create pinwheels of different shapes and sizes. As part of the creation process, they will write their thoughts about war and peace, tolerance and living in harmony with others on one side. On the other side, they will draw, paint, collage and more to visually express their feelings.

The students will assemble the pinwheels and plant them Friday, Sept. 19, as a public statement and art installation in honor of the International Day of Peace on Sunday, Sept. 21. Visitors can see the pinwheels on the school grounds, 0N645 Indian Knoll Road, West Chicago.

For details, visit pinwheelsforpeace.com.