LAYTON — The back wall of Nancy Clark's Northridge High School classroom is no longer a dull shade of cream. Not after three senior students transformed it into their larger-than-life-size canvas and painted a giant science mural on the surface.
Now the wall, which sits in the back of room C127 at the school, 2430 N. Hillfield Road, is splashed with bright reds, oranges, blues and more.
"They did such an awesome job," said Reed Loveland, head of the school's art department.
Loveland was one of several visitors who took a look at the wall April 5 during a small after-school reception held in Clark's room.
"It is just incredible what it has done to the room," he said.
At the start of the school year, Northridge's new principal told faculty members that they were free to do what they wanted with their classrooms. Clark jumped at the opportunity. With a degree in art, she was eager to liven her room up with color.
She went to art teacher Wendy Dimick to see if any of her students could paint a mural in her classroom. Dimick found independent study students Rachel Neil, 18, Stephanie Arnell, 17, and Shanna Davis, 18, and asked them if they would like to tackle the project.
"It was a lot bigger than we thought," Davis said. "I think if we knew how big it was we may have hesitated."
But the students didn't hesitate. They started painting the first part of September and finished just a few weeks ago.
Clark gave the students a poster she bought more than 20 years ago, titled "Science and Technology Are Everywhere," to use as a blueprint for the mural.
From a rocket pictured at the left side of the wall near the letters F=ma — force equals mass times acceleration — to a large tropical flower at the right side of the wall, the mural blends the fields of physics, biology, chemistry, zoology, botany and geology into one.
"It shows how sciences are interconnected," Clark said.
The mural also includes a penguin, cheetah, kangaroo, squid, hummingbird, dragonfly and helicopter.
Dimick freehanded the poster's images in chalk onto the wall and the students filled in the markings with paint.
The students spent one and a half hours of class time every other day working on the mural. They had to be conscientious of Clark's science students who were often trying to listen to her lectures while they painted.
Neil remembers working on the mural's flower on the right side of the wall.
"When I was doing it students were going in and out of the lab so they kept hitting me with the door," she said.
This was the first time all three of the students painted on a wall.
"It was hard painting on a wall," Arnell said. "It's different than a canvas."
But Arnell said she learned a lot by painting on a different medium.
"I really like how it made me a better painter," she said, adding that her confidence has grown and she has learned how to paint faster.
The students said they had a lot of fun painting the mural, even though they got sick of it at times.
Dimick said she is pleased with the end result.
"I thought I was going to have to touch it up and fix a lot of things, but I was really surprised," Dimick said, adding that the students got A's every term for their work.
Clark is also happy with the end result. She said before it was painted, the wall was a cream color and was covered with little pictures.
"This makes a bigger statement and it's actually a teaching tool," she said.
Arnell said she thinks the science mural started a trend at the high school. Now, there are murals popping up in various other locations. She and Davis are working on one in the school's student services office.
When she steps back and looks at the finished science mural, Arnell said it doesn't feel like she did it.
"I am extremely happy (with it)," she said.
Davis agrees.
"I look at it and it looks good and I can't believe we did it . . . It's something cool to leave behind," she said.
E-mail: nclemens@desnews.com