COEUR d’ALENE — Rummaging through a bag of colorful glass triangles, Bella Swingrover found just the right one.

“I like organizing the darkers and the lighters,” Bella said, examining the glass between her fingers.

The Sorensen Magnet School of the Arts and Humanities third-grader elaborated on her goal of making her mosaic creation look like water.

"You know how when you go to the beach, how the sun shimmers on the water, but when you go deep and dive down to the bottom it gets dark and when you look up you can see the sun shining on the top?" Bella asked. "So that’s a fun experience for this.”

Across Sorensen, students are experimenting with glass art and contributing their creativity to what will be a paint and mosaic mural that will be installed on the 120-foot western exterior wall of the school, facing Ninth Street.

Leading them in this task is artist-in-residence Melissa Cole, a Spokane-based artist with an expansive resume of public art and vivid installations that reflect her background in zoology, extensive travel and a childhood spent in India.

The mural is expected to be completed May 7, weather permitting, and will feature flora and fauna found in the region.

"It is all the local animals that are found, and it’s a mix — it's got mammals and reptiles and amphibians and birds,” Cole said. “A lot of the plants were traditionally dug for food and medicine, so the balsam root, wild roses and camas."

This colorful art project, Cole said, is actually mathematical.

"It’s good for your brain because it’s like doing a jigsaw puzzle," she said. "You have to think about triangles in math and how they're going to fit together. You can’t really just do what you want to. It uses a lot of critical thinking skills to put it together."

Third-grader Aria Young said she was loving this project.

"This is really fun because we don’t do glass art a lot," Aria said. "It’s usually like painting and stuff, so this is really fun."

Sorensen's art director, Jill McFarlane, was pleased to see the students participating in a hands-on project with the school's first artist-in-residence since COVID hit a year ago.

"A lot of our arts programming has been put on hold,” she said. "But the teachers have done an amazing job of integrating arts curriculum into their classrooms."

McFarlane said she's super excited about the mosaic and painted mural because it will be installed on the outside of the school.

"It’s going to be not just beautifying our school, but the entire community can appreciate it," she said.

The project is supported by funds raised at the school's annual auction last year and a grant from the Idaho Commission on the Arts.