By: Lily Fraser

Wheat Ridge High School’s Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics or STEAM, team is cooking up some great plans for 2016-2017.

During the summer of 2016, the STEAM class with art teacher Andy Yutzy put up a statue of a hand and the Tree of Life at Lutheran Medical Center in Wheat Ridge. The team spent all year building the statue, taking time and effort to perfect the model as much as they could. Now even better projects are planned for 2016 and 2017.

Yutzy and his students had put up the statue on Lutheran’s campus on June 4, 2016. The inspiration of this piece is cancer awareness. He mentioned in the interview that he wanted to do something for cancer patients, such as Freddie Steinmark, but it’s not influenced by him as a person. He would like to support the patients who are suffering through cancer and the treatments.

Yutzy said that they are starting to work with a group called The Clean Slate Group, who are people that decorate and design street murals on electrical boxes all around the area. For 2017, he’s hoping to get the train rolling on the design for a new sculpture that he has not entirely planned out quite yet.

There has been nothing but upperclassmen have been in his class. Yutzy has allowed freshmen in this year’s class for the first time, so he’s planning on going slow and steady with the new kids before they start hustling onto projects. “It’s good for the students and community to work together on things like this,” Yutzy says. “Working with construction workers and with Lutheran Medical was a great experience.”
Thanks to Yutzy, teenagers are sculpting and designing projects that can support and make the area an even better place for people to enjoy while driving or walking through.