Mars Area Elementary School students (Grades 2-4) designed and created bird ornaments as part of the Phipps Conservatory & Botanical Gardens Fairchild Challenge.

The challenge, “Wonders of Wings,” asked students to design sustainably crafted bird ornaments. The students also needed to write a short paper describing their bird’s different flight patterns and wing functions.

Participating students included sixth-graders Noah Fecich, Ellie Kurnocik, Hannah Nam, Seth Pedicone and Kristin Sadhu; and fifth-graders Lila Demetris, Gillian Everest, Bennett Kreit, Landon Lewis, Ellie Spaulding and Adalyn Stuber.

The birds and papers will be judged by a panel through Phipps Conservatory, and, if selected may be even showcased on trees during Phipps’s “Winter Flower Show.”

Phipps Conservatory’s annual Fairchild Challenge is a free, multidisciplinary, standards-based environmental education outreach program designed to encourage students’ innate sense of curiosity about the world around them. The program empowers students to engage in civic life and to become energetic and knowledgeable members of their communities.

For more information, visit https://www.phipps.conservatory.org/classes-and-programs/for-educators/fairchild-challenge/elementary-school/challenge-a.