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Students in the Straughn High School Art Guild honored Alabama’s Bicentennial by creating a massive foam map.

Art Guild sponsor Bettina Shiver said she wanted to allow her students to become historians through the project.

“They really had to dig down and do some research for this project,” Shiver said. “I wanted them to highlight different regions on the map. So, we have different events and moments on the map. Here in Covington County, we are highlighting the Three Notch Trail. In other places, we highlighted things like different geographical features, people and historic events just to showcase the things in Alabama that we should be proud of.”

Art Guild President Dallas Inabinett said the project help his peers learn about history.

“The research really helped engage them in the project,” Inabinett said. “I feel like a lot of people ultimately enjoyed learning about Alabama’s history.”

Art Guild vice president Julia Kondraty’ev was excited about going into depth in each county.

“When you learn about history, you don’t really go deep into one state,” Kondraty’ev said. “But when it comes to art and you have to create something for one county, you have to go into depth and really learn.”

Shiver said the project has inspired many of her students to travel to the different places they researched.

“I think with this project a lot of the kids want to become more engaged with these places,” Shiver said. “There are so many actual sites that they can visit that are historical.”

Inabinett said before the project he had no clue how much of an influence Alabama had on the history of the United States.