Photo courtesy of Gao Vang WWG High School student Gao Vang displayed an artwork she recently completed with recycled materials. Vang and members of the WWG YES! (Youth Eco Solutions) team hope to raise awareness of environmental issues, and promote recycling.

WESTBROOK — It took her a couple months of work, and help from friends. But Westbrook Walnut Grove High School student Gao Vang has turned recycling into an art form.

Vang, a sophomore at WWG, completed an artwork using over 1,000 recycled bottle caps and pop tabs. Vang said the finished project represents marine animals, and is meant to raise awareness of the impact of pollution on the ocean.

“The mural reminds us that small actions, like recycling, can help protect the environment and make a difference,” Vang said.

Vang said she started working on the mural in late December, and just recently finished it.

“I really like it, and hope to do another similar project,” she said.

The mural project is part of YES! (Youth Eco Solutions), a statewide program that encourages young people to take on environmental challenges through hands-on community projects. According to the program’s website, YES! Teams at Minnesota schools have worked on projects ranging from energy audits and growing local food, to monitoring water quality in rivers and lakes.

At WWG, students in YES! are working on projects like conducting water testing, and studying the amount of paper used for printing at their school. Vang said students in the paper project are looking at ways to reduce paper use.

Another idea — an art project using recycled materials — came from WWG graduate Payeng Vue. After Vue graduated, “I just took that over,” Vang said.

“We definitely wanted to do something with recycling, and showing how we can re-use trash,” Vang said.

Students started by coming up with a design for a mural.

“We found pictures online, and we had our group decide which pictures we should use,” Vang said. Students wanted an image that would highlight a natural habitat. The design they came up with showed an ocean sunset and a whale leaping out of the water.

Vang said the mural started out by painting a colorful backdrop on a board. Then she used about 1,000 colorful plastic bottle caps and another 1,000 aluminum pop tabs like mosaic tiles, filling out the image.

“We ran out of blue for the whale, so we decided to go with pop tabs,” Vang said.

Students also experimented with different ways of attaching the materials to the backdrop.

For the bottle caps, Vang said, “We tried superglue and hot glue, and we decided it worked better with screws.”

Vang worked on the mural during her free time.

“Every day after school for an hour, I would start screwing some (bottle caps) in,” she said. Friends and team members, including freshmen Sydney Swenson, Annika Kopperud and Sweety Lee, sophomore Alexis Vang, and junior Madison Xiong, helped add bottle caps to the board.

“With the pop tabs, we used clear epoxy to make them stick on the board,” Vang said.

Now that the art project is complete, the YES! Team plans to display it on a shed building at WWG, Vang said.

Vang said she hopes to spread awareness about protecting the environment. Working on the artwork with the YES! Team was also a positive experience.

“I definitely liked working together, just the teamwork and problem-solving, and the opportunity of doing this project,” she said.