Tara Elementary students harvest ideas at Fruits and Veggies Day

Tara Elementary School fifth graders Micah French, R.J. Griffis, Kaitlyn Do and Kinley Chupp had no problems getting their hands dirty.

Each of them took smashed bananas, spread it across their tray, and topped it with beans.

The hope was that it would look like sand and scattered shells.

Griffis said his team originally planned to use mangoes for the sand, but mangoes weren't available during the Fruits and Veggie Day challenge Feb. 3 at Tara.

Fourth and fifth grade Technology Student Association and Robotics students were tasked with using fruits and vegetables to create a scene that would fall under the theme of "Florida."

French, Griffis, Do and Chupp added added a Florida sunset using orange slices.They created a crab made out of half an orange, tomatoes and apple slices on top of the crushed banana sand. For the palm trees and bushes, they used celery and broccoli. Their scene was completed with shark gummies.

The team had to make changes from their blueprint along the way because they didn't know what fruits and vegetables would be available.

French said their project turned out better than expected.

While some students decided to make scenery, others focused on creating animals using the various fruits and vegetables available.

Fourth graders Archer Miles, Wyeth Hudson and Martin Torres made turtles, a dolphin and a panther.

Miles and Torres said they decided to make a dolphin to honor Clearwater Marine Aquarium's dolphin Winter, who died in 2021. They used a banana for the body, raisins for the eyes, gummies for the fins and a carrot for the tail.