As Latin teacher Jennifer Station prepares for her return from maternity leave, the deadline for the big project her students have been working on looms. Students could choose the topic of their projects which could be expressed either an essay or a creative project. Eighth-grader Nathaniel B. has been working on a project based on primordial gods. 

 “My project is a total of four sketches of some of the primordial deities,” he said. “The four I chose were the deities of light, darkness, underworld and the sky.” 

Nathaniel currently is working on the first few stages of his project which includes choosing color themes of complimenting colors for each of the gods. His process begins with sketching the baselines for each of the faces. 

“I’m going to start with a basic sketch and work from that to use some specific color schemes for the individual pieces to make each piece compliment itself and the others,” he said. 

While Nathaniel is doing a traditional art project, fellow eighth-grader Olivia H. has chosen to create a working Roman ballista, an ancient missile weapon that launches either bolts or stones at a distant target.

“I chose this project because of the challenge it is to replicate the ancient weapon and make it functional,” she said. “I also chose it because it sounded cool and fun.”   

Olivia faces the difficulty of creating a replica with few well-documented instructions.  

“The major difficulty will probably be putting it together and making it able to function and launch the projectile,” she said. 

Nathaniel however faces a different obstacle. 

“The god of the underworld will probably be the most difficult because of the sharp features and possibly having too few reds to color with,” he said.

Nathaniel said his final project which will be presented in class over two days. 

“I hope it looks somewhat professional and clean and that all the colors would end up complimenting each other like I hoped,” he said. 

By Cassidy Corey

Editor’s note: Brevard Public Schools policy prohibits the inclusion of middle-schoolers’ last names on district-sponsored websites.