Students aim for the sky with art

TAMPA - "It's a good day to be a dolphin!" screamed one of the excited students at Tampa Bay Boulevard Elementary School.

With nothing more than a little direction and the promise that this would be something they'd remember all their lives, the children worked together to get the job done -- spreading top soil out to make the outline and Florida white sand for the belly, fins and tail.

"I am adding glint to the dolphin's eye so it will sparkle when it reflects back to us," one of the teachers explained.

Then every single student poured out in blue t-shirts to fill in the rest. And the final result was spectacular. Almost a thousand kids, kneeling over making the shape of a dolphin so big you could see it from the sky— a camera high above captured all their hard work.

"Imagine you're this giant dolphin swimming through the ocean!" creator Daniel Dancer yelled from the sky as the students huddled together to keep warm and keep the shape steady.

Dancer travels the world arranging people into nature pictorials, human figurines. His project is called Art for the Sky.

Dancer learned years ago from the master, Field Artist Stan Hurd, who fashioned an Indian face out in the Midwest with nothing but colored crops, using his tractor as a paint brush. Five hundred kids formed his black headband.

Years later, one told Dancer it was the most important thing he ever did while he was in school. So Dancer made it his mission to continue.

"You guys did a good job thank you!" he calls to the ground, proud once more.

"This is about teaching the kids to see the big picture, what I call our sky sight," Dancer told FOX 13.

And they get it.

"To me, it's like helping our world, seeing the world in a different way so we can see what is happening now," one student said.

But what they really thought was cool was when Dancer came back to show them what it looked like from the sky.

"It looks awesome 'cause it's like a real dolphin," a third grader said.

"I felt happy cause look, it was our whole school," another student said.

It's all about teaching respect for and finding a renewed interest in nature, stepping back and getting a little perspective, and how powerful and beautiful something can be when we all work together.

"Keep your sky sight on!" three girls yelled after the dolphin success.

Maybe we all need the inspiration to do just that.

Click here to check out the Art for the Sky 'Sky Gallery'.