Denton schoolchildren connected with children from Africa in spreading a message on the importance of protecting the environment Wednesday.

DRC/Gary Payne

Ugandan artist Fred Mutebi, center, helps Amanda White, right, add to a “talking mural” during “Let Art Talk: A Global Art Workshop for Families” at McNair Elementary School in Denton on Wednesday.

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In an art workshop titled “Let Art Talk,” students and their families at McNair Elementary School became the first to join Ugandan woodcut printmaker Fred Mutebi in creating a portion of an eight-piece “talking mural,” a form of art that merges text and imagery to send out a message evoking change.

Their work will be added along with other panels being designed by kids in seven Dallas-Fort Worth area schools and community centers and four Ugandan villages that will convey the message “Commit to passing on a cleaner Earth for a beautiful future.” More than 60 children and their families turned out to create artwork of what they envisioned a clean environment would look like.

Mutebi, the founder of Let Art Talk, an organization launched last year to convey messages on important global and Ugandan issues, said by contributing to the mural, children are creating a vehicle of social change. Their views, he said, could well be the solutions to the problems of today.

“Art for children … kind of creates confidence in young people,” Mutebi said. “When you are young and you do something, you may not know, but it’s leading [them] to having confidence and developing into a problem-solver when they grow up.”

During the two-hour workshop, sponsored by the University of North Texas and other organizations, children contributed to the mural by drawing pictures of water, green grass, tall trees, bright blue skies and butterflies — all things they viewed as part of a clean environment.

Students also wrote words symbolizing what they viewed as elements of a clean environment. Within the next few weeks, children around the area will contribute to the mural, and in February the work will be sent off to Uganda where children will create artwork based on the words used by American schoolchildren to describe a clean environment. Once the mural is complete, it will return to the U.S. for students to view.

Wednesday’s event also included stations where students could create jewelry, bookmarks and planters out of recycled goods and learn about Ugandan culture.

Lawauna Budwine, a mother, said the workshop taught her two children, ages 5 and 11, what it means to interact with another country and care about one’s environment.

“I think that it’s important because if you teach them at a young age, they will be more conscientious as they grow to protect the environment, and it gives them a fun way to do it,” Budwine said.

Laurel Collins, who brought her daughter Claire to the workshop, said the event taught children about the environment and made her daughter aware of new cultures.

It gave Claire an opportunity to contribute to a global message, she said.

“It’s really fun,” Collins said. “I think it’s important for her to be aware that she’s a part of something much bigger than her local community.”

BRITNEY TABOR can be reached at 940-566-6876. Her e-mail address is btabor@dentonrc.com  .