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It might take about 750 pairs of tiny hands, but the result is one enormous and lasting message.

This month, West Salem Elementary will complete an “Environmental Quilt” — a four-month-long project that produces 80 square feet of ecological awareness.

From tracing to cutting to drawing to sewing, 750 kindergarten through fifth-graders take part in creating the quilt, which centers on an environmental theme. This year’s theme is water, and it is the third quilt created by the elementary school.

“It’s a lot of hands,” said art teacher Angie Stefferud-Johnson.

Three years ago, Stefferud-Johnson and art teacher Krista Beron, now at the middle school, came up with the idea of creating the Environmental Quilt. The plan was to implement the school’s environmental education curriculum into art classes while involving all students.

The two past quilts — measuring about 10-by-8 feet each — carry endangered species and wetland themes, and they hang in different stairwells at the school.

“We wanted to do something that hadn’t been done,” Stefferud-Johnson said. “We thought rather than doing one project with each class we should get everyone involved. And we wanted to do something that lasted.”

Using fabric donated to the school, Stefferud-Johnson and fellow elementary art teacher Danielle Tsukano begin working with kindergartners in February and have them trace and cut out 8-by-8-inch squares. Stefferud-Johnson then sews the squares together to create the base for the quilt.

First-graders learn stamping techniques to decorate pieces of fabric while second- and third-graders take on sewing designs and embroidery.

Fourth-graders work on small, informational blocks of fabric and create messages or pictures that pertain to that year’s environmental theme. Fifth-graders do the same, although they work on larger blocks of fabric.

After sewing the final fabric pieces together and adding the blocks of fabric, the Environmental Quilt is complete.

Seven-year-old Daulton Frydenlund was working on sewing designs with his second-grade classmates last week. This will be the third Environmental Quilt on which he has worked.

“It’s big and it’s cool,” he said. “And I learned to pick up stuff and about littering.”

The quilt’s theme ties in to the school-wide environmental education curriculum. For the last 16 years, Outdoor Education Center coordinator Barb Thompson has worked with teachers to educate students about the environment, ecology and animals.

“Environmental education is supposed to be used in all curriculum areas,” Thompson said. “I had heard at a conference about schools hosting an Environmental Day where they teach different things about the environment.

“We thought ‘What a great idea.’ But then we said, ‘In elementary, you never teach something just one day.’”

So, since 1992, Thompson has created teaching packets that help teachers introduce environmental education in their lesson plans. The packets and information consist of six themes that rotate yearly, aiming to present all themes during a student’s time at the elementary school. The themes are endangered species, water, wetlands, forestry, the Mississippi River and “un-huggables,” or animals that you shouldn’t or don’t want to pick up.

The year of environmental education is capped with Environmental Day at the school where presenters come in to speak to the students. The day falls near Earth Day — this year it was held April 17 — and presenters who attend have connections to that year’s theme.

“The day is very well worth it; the kids have a blast from the time they come to school,” Thompson said. “They get to see live animals and the learn more about the theme we’re focusing on.”

While the environmental packets are meant to aid teachers, some take the information to a new level, like the Environmental Quilt.

“I think it’s a perfect way to infuse environmental education into art,” Thompson said. “Kids love art, and when they’re excited about doing art, they’re going to learn. If they’re excited about doing the art, they’re excited about the environmental part.”

Stefferud-Johnson said the designs on the fabric and whatever messages or pictures go on the quilts are completely up to the students. But because they get to chose, they’ll do some research — such as what animals are endangered when that that was the theme last year.

Mitch Hansen, 10, said he has enjoyed drawing on fabric squares, but he also learned about how easily people can affect the environment.

“I learned that if you do something to the world and you don’t think it’ll make a difference, it will, because that’s the way the world works,” he said.

And because the Environmental Quilt is a project for the entire school each year, students look forward to the next quilt. Although Alex Burch is a fourth-grader, this is just the second Environmental Quilt on which she has worked because she didn’t attend the West Salem School District until last year. But that first quilt hanging in the stairwell made quite an impression.

“When I came here with my mom to the school for the first time, we were looking at all the squares on the quilt,” said Burch, 10. “I thought it looked like fun, so when I was told I was going to do a quilt like this, too, I was so excited.”

And, for teachers like Stefferud-Johnson, stitching together education, art and fun create the big picture of what West Salem Elementary tries to accomplish.

“Families will come in here and they get to see the quilts,” Stefferud-Johnson said. “I think that any time we get to do a project with a common purpose as a community, it’s important.

“The quilts stay here at school forever, and (the kids) have ownership of that and it’ll still be here when they’re in high school. And they’ve learned something along the way.”