St. Alphonsus students make ornaments for ‘Minnesota tree’ near White House

 

With about a week’s notice, students at St. Alphonsus Catholic School in Brooklyn Center created designs for ornaments representing what makes the state of Minnesota beautiful. Twelve ornaments based on the students’ designs are the only ones decorating “the Minnesota tree” on The Ellipse in President’s Park in Washington D.C.

St. Alphonsus represents Minnesota in this year’s “America Celebrates” ornament program, a collaboration between the National Park Service, U.S. Department of Education and National Park Foundation. The U.S. Department of Education worked through state art and education offices, which identified elementary, middle and high schools to participate in the program.

The Minnesota tree is one of 56 from U.S. states and territories, and the District of Columbia that line a walkway surrounding the national Christmas tree. All are decorated with student-designed ornaments.

While not certain why her school was chosen, Kari Staples, principal at St. Alphonsus, said she completed an application and was vetted by the arts specialist at the Minnesota DOE. Following vetting and a recommendation from the Minnesota Independent School Forum, Staples learned that her school’s student designs would represent the state.

Staples believes one reason her school was chosen is that students have attended classes in person since Sept. 1, “so with our students in school,” she said, “this was something we could do.”

Sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade teachers at St. Alphonsus made the ornament project an assignment. It was optional for students in fourth and fifth grades. About 65 students drew and colored designs on a circular template provided by the National Park Service. School staff picked 12 ornament designs that they believed best represented Minnesota, Staples said. Middle school students created 11 of the chosen designs, along with one fifth-grader.

“It was interesting to see the differences in what Minnesota means to our students,” Staples said, and how it depended on how much the students had traveled across the state or what they had picked up from history classes. Designs included a Duluth canal, Gooseberry Falls, the state Capitol, the Minnesota Wild, the Mall of America and a lady’s slipper (the state’s flower), she said.

Staff scanned and emailed the 12 chosen designs to the Minnesota Department of Education, which forwarded them to the Park Service. Those designs soon became the ornaments that will adorn the Minnesota tree through Jan. 1.

“It’s just a wonderful thing for our school,” Staples said.

The National Park Foundation funded the project.