Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 10, 1992 TAG: 9203100066
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By MELISSA DEVAUGHN
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
An exotic-looking monkey hangs from a tree by his tail, and a bright red and yellow snake twists his way up a vine.
Relax. They're not real. Just papier-mache and a little bit of paint. But they represent the real thing - the creatures of tropical rain forests all over the world.
The rain forest was created by the sixth-graders at Blacksburg Middle School, with a little help from art teachers Lynn Bustle and Linda Olin.
The pupils have been studying about rain forests and "the sixth-grade teachers asked us if we could help them make the animals," Olin said. "They wanted to display them in a refrigerator box."
Now, after two weeks of work, that refrigerator box is only a "tree" in the corner of an entire rain forest crammed full of more than 100 wild tropical creatures.
"The project just grew and grew," Olin said.
The rain forest encompasses the front section of the Middle School library. The ceilings and walls are covered with green art paper. Hand-twisted vines hang from one end of the ceiling to another. Brightly colored flowers are attached to the walls and tropical insects and birds hide in the petals. The other creatures seem to wander about the paper-covered forest floor.
Although the characteristics and coloring on these creatures are as close as a sixth-grade artist can get, not all the animals are quite to scale.
For instance, a mother leopard rests in the background of the rain forest taking care of her young - which are twice her size.
A roach the size of a tomcat towers above the flattened little turtle nearby.
And a parrot perched on a branch is about one-third the size of the tree frog on the next branch.
Even so, the forest is impressive. Not only does each animal, reptile and insect represent one found in rain forests, but they have been researched and studied by each pupil.
Brea Strager, 11, made a dwarf lemur.
"I like things that are unique and [in the books] I liked the way he looked," Brea said. Her lemur is the only one in the jungle. He is a little guy, painted mostly gray, and he sits atop a wooden stump.
"That's how they are in the rain forest," Brea said. "They like to sit in little perches or small places."
One of the brightest creatures in the mock rain forest is the dart-poison tree frog, made by 12- year-old Jason Lux. The frog has bright green and black stripes and shiny black marbles for eyes.
"I like reptiles and amphibians and he's a very colorful one," Jason said. "He's poisonous. He's up there in the top 10 of poisonous [amphibians]."
Of all the rain-forest animals, the monkeys were the favorite of art teacher Lynn Bustle.
"The kids could choose the animal they wanted to make," she said. "Of course, they all wanted to do monkeys, so we had to show them other possibilities."
Aaron Limoges, 11, wanted to make a monkey, but once he started looking at the different species, he had trouble deciding which one to choose.
"I made a gibbon," he said. "They hang from trees and they're like normal monkeys, but they don't have tails."
Aaron chose the gibbon because in the pictures "he looked like he was flying. I liked the thought of motion."
The sixth-grade teachers and the art teachers are holding an open house Thursday at noon for anyone who wishes to experience the jungle. Refreshments will be served and donations will be accepted to help raise money for rain forest preservation.
The jungle can be found in the school library. You can't miss it.
by CNB