It’s about 502 million miles from Earth to Jupiter — 3.1 billion if you’re going all the way to Pluto.
Unreasonable.
But thanks to the science-minded artists at North Elementary and their friends at Mason-Dixon Historical Park, you can now take a stellar stroll through the entire solar system in about a mile.
Monongalia County Parks & Recreation hosted a shindig at the park Thursday afternoon with the dual purpose of showing off the new Dunkard Pavilion and launching the aforementioned Space Trail.
“We worked on this all year long,” North Elementary fourth Grade teacher Sara Pennington said, standing just south of Neptune.
The walk features large glass mosaics spaced to scale and representing each heavenly body in the solar system. The mosaics include art from every student at North Elementary.
But it was Pennington’s fourth graders and Sarah Rummel’s fifth graders who helped procure, cut and arrange the glass from the Youghiogheny Opalescent Glass Co., turning chaos into order.
“All the students at North painted a planet, or in this case, a moon. Every student painted their individual planet and then our classes worked on putting it all together to make the whole mosaic piece,” Rummel said.
The whole process was a learning experience – for everyone.
“They enjoyed it, and we learned a lot,” Rummel said, gesturing to Pennington. “I’ve never grouted before; never cut glass before. Now, no problem.”
Mason-Dixon Historical Park Superintendent Angela Hinerman said she expects both the Space Trail and the new Dunkard Pavilion to see a lot of visitors.
The county’s in-house construction crew completed the pavilion this spring. It’s located next to its easy-flowing namesake, near the ball field in the park’s lower portion.
Unless reserved, the park’s pavilions are open for public use.
“We’ve been having a lot of fun and putting a lot of work into the park,” Hinerman said. “This area down here has transformed a lot. I really think this is going to be the new hot commodity of the park.”
All park facilities are available for rent through monongaliacounty.gov under the “departments” and “parks and recreation” tabs.
