Waltham High School students’ mural will grace the Charles River Collaboratory

By DAVID ROSEN
Waltham Times Contributing Writer

A mural created by two members of the Waltham High School art club soon will be displayed at the Charles River Collaboratory inside the Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation at 154 Moody St.

Seniors Ada Slaeker and Elizabeth Judd said they worked one day a week for six months to create the 6-feet-by-4-feet acrylic paint mural. 

Kathleen Flynn, the club’s faculty advisor, supervised the project.

They said the mural focuses on the issues of robotics and mechanics and includes two clocks because, of course, Waltham is known as Watch City.

Two other club members, Olivia Amundson and Sophie Depaiva, are working on a second mural. A third one is planned.

The collaboratory is a partnership between the Waltham Public Schools and the Lynch School of Education and the Department of Engineering, both at Boston College. It seeks to “elevate youth voices as leaders, changemakers, and mentors” who can design and transform the future of their communities, according to the organization’s website.

‘A youth-led, equity, innovation space’

“Students come here after school on Wednesdays and Thursdays, They learn to use equipment like 3D printers and lasers, they work on projects and they hear presentations by local industry innovators,” said the museum’s education director Stephen Guerriero.

Michael Barnett, professor of science education and technology at the Lynch School, is a founder of the collaboratory and oversees the program.

The mural project came about thanks to a relationship between high school art club member Elio Valenzuela and Barnett, who lives in Waltham. The relationship began when Valenzuela was a student at the Kennedy Middle School and Barnett made presentations there.

Valenzuela said Barnett asked him if the club could create murals to be shown at the collaboratory and gave him the desired dimensions.

Barnett said the mural was created “to honor the idea that drives the collaboratory as a youth-led, equity, innovation space. It seems right and fitting that collaboratory should have youth art that decorates its walls. All we did was provide some funding for them to purchase what they needed and let their creativity do the rest.”

Barnett is quite pleased with the students’ creativity. “The mural is absolutely fantastic,” he said.

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