A Monumental Project in Calvert County

Elementary school students create original monuments honoring women in STEM

When Mount Harmony Elementary School (MHES) students learned that there are very few monuments in our nation’s capital dedicated to one particular woman, “their jaws just about hit the floor,” says Jacqueline Williams, MHES’ art teacher.

Last October, MHES students in kindergarten through fifth grade visited Washington, D.C. with pencils and sketchbooks in hand. The students particularly appreciated the Vietnam Women’s Memorial, which honors the nurses and women of the United States who served in the Vietnam War.

“They were like, ‘Can we just stay here a little longer?’” recalls Melaney Sanchez, the school’s librarian and organizer of the D.C. field trips. “They have reverence for [the Vietnam Women’s Memorial].”

Sanchez says she told the students, “Even though [women’s voices largely aren’t] here [in D.C.] and their stories get lost or are not told, they’re still part of [history]. How can we change that?”

She suggested they design monuments dedicated to women, and they agreed, embarking on a months-long project.

Sanchez and MHES partnered with the U.S. Mint, the Women’s Quarters program, the Women’s Suffragist National Monument Foundation, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, the Maryland Center for History and Culture and the National Mall Park Service.

During weekly library time, MHES students in second through fifth grades researched a historical “strong woman” of their choice who contributed to the field of science, technology, engineering or math (STEM).

Raya Kenney, an advocate who designed the World War II Women’s Memorial for a fifth grade project, visited MHES to tell her story. Her memorial is in the works, and will be built in D.C.

Sanchez read portions of Linda Booth Sweeney’s “Monument Maker” to K-5 students to convey how a monument is constructed. The award-winning picture book follows a 15-year-old self-taught sculptor who created the Lincoln Memorial.

Sweeney visited MHES and spent a day with students, who were overjoyed to meet the author. Sanchez jokes that the number of kids who lined up to talk to Sweeney rivaled the queue for a Taylor Swift concert.

“[Sweeney’s] message to them was … ‘You’re makers; you have a creative mind. You have a voice. What do you want for the future?’” Sanchez says. “The other big theme of the book was ‘History shapes us, so how do you shape history?’”

Students visited the Lincoln Memorial to study its construction. They sketched renderings of various monuments, focusing on their size, material, subject matter and intended influence, says Williams, the students’ art teacher.

Fourth and fifth graders channeled this energy into their own monuments, trading white Georgian marble for Model Magic clay and taking their research from the library into the art room.

“We talked about symbolism and how [their monuments] didn’t have to look like that particular person,” Williams says. “How can you visually represent events that that person [experienced] in their life before they changed the world? So, that’s what we did with the sculptural materials.”

Fourth and fifth graders painted their Model Magic creations with acrylic paints and then wrote artist statements explaining the significance of their work.

One student created the bus seat that Rosa Parks had been sitting on when she defied Jim Crow laws and refused to give up her spot to a white man in 1955, making the seat appear weathered to reflect the era.

Another student depicted Sacagawea holding her baby. Another crafted the lantern that Harriet Tubman used to light the way as she led people out of slavery.

The younger students—in kindergarten through second grade—created a D.C. “traveler,” a paper person holding a small book about a historical woman. Kindergartners focused on Helen Keller and first graders focused on Marian Anderson, the first Black singer at the Metropolitan Opera. Second and third graders got to choose a woman to research.

The students’ artwork was on display in the school cafeteria on “National Mall Night” in March for about 700 in attendence. Families explored the art show, participated in a scavenger hunt, visited an exhibit on women’s suffrage, browsed the book fair and met the author of “Monument Maker.”

More than 30 of the monuments are currently on display at the Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument in D.C., bringing the initiative full-circle.

Sanchez says she’s seen an impact on her students: “My girls are sitting up straighter [in school]. They are leaning in.”

But Sanchez and Williams’ work isn’t over yet.

“Our goal is to continue this conversation,” Sanchez says.

She’s connecting students with the Women’s Suffrage National Monument Foundation, so that when the foundation holds a design contest in the future, the students already have their ideas for a monument mapped out.

“I want [my students] to walk away with the idea that they can influence the world,” says Sanchez. “I need them to … see that their voices matter and that they can be part of the solution.”