Ellen Schneider, Senior Art Education major, decided to use the seventh grade class from nearby Holy Angels Elementary School as her research subjects for her honors art thesis project called Barren Bowls, introducing a faraway concept to their artwork - hunger in Africa.

The project consisted of having students participate in a 14-week process of creating African-style sculptures of bowls and masks while teaching them about hunger in Africa.

Aside from creating art, the students actively learned about world hunger by tracking their daily food intake and comparing it to United Nations food rations for hunger-ridden places in Africa.

"The idea was the planning and implementing of very specific and intended learning activities," Schneider said.

The African hunger theme followed this structure, she said, to the more specific theme of "art education and its inclusion in multicultural activities." She said she wanted to see the students' reaction to teaching with a social concept.

"Their reaction was really positive," Schneider said. "They remained very engaged because they knew they were one step closer to seeing the vessel going into the kiln."

Schneider got the idea of using Holy Angels students for her project from observing teacher, Maria Cleary for an education course her freshman year at UD.

Schneider wanted the students to have more of an understanding of the reason for artists' work , allowing them to deal with ideas such as this on a higher level than usual.

Susan Byrnes, Director of ArtStreet, said ArtStreet has "specialized facilities" for honors art student' projects since their thesis work will often take a different form from that of most students', which are typically paper or presentation projects.

"We like to honor the honors thesis students with an exhibition of their work," Byrnes said.

Byrnes said the driving forces of the Barren Bowls project were social justice, world hunger and cultural awareness. Thus, ArtStreet is the ideal place for display.

"She was able to bridge so many ideas into one project," Byrnes said. "She really moved them toward this wonderful project."

Byrnes encourages students sharing their art with the community.

"I think that when students have the opportunity to conduct special projects and have the opportunity to share them in a different format to share with other students and professors, it inspires them to push their ideas in their projects even further and inspires greater innovation," Byrnes said.

The project will be featured in ArtStreet Gallery D from its opening ceremony 7 to 9 p.m. March 31 through May 1.