An eight hour loop of relaxing jungle sounds plays on laptop speakers as students create their own cave paintings.
Crumpled brown paper hangs on the wall simulating a cave. Eight elementary students cover the paper with mostly right handprints, a finger painted ring of fire, chalk drawn horses, and one Pokemon, a Pikachu.
Junior Chelsea Naylor, a Bonner Scholar, came up with the idea for JumpstART in the summer of 2012 after she attended a leadership conference. She brought the idea back that fall laying down the grunt work to get the program off the ground.
"I modeled it after Sports Night [a DePauw Community Service program]," Naylor said. "I wanted to have that, but focus on an area of academics that doesn't get a lot of focus, like art."
Naylor leads discussions and ultimately decides the focus of each lesson.
JumpstART begins with a power point presentation of a specific type of art, this month was Cave Paintings. Naylor, along with other Bonner scholars and volunteers, guide the students through the history of the type of art.
"It was important to have female and male volunteers to show that boys can do art too," Naylor said.
After the students have learned enough about the art they move to a studio and re-create their interpretation of it. Students alternated from using chalk to finger paint to cover the crumpled brown paper.
"They do just enough [history] that the kids don't get bored with it," Christi York said. Her son Duncan's left hand prints the brown paper with orange.
"I liked using the chalk better than the paint because your hand doesn't get as messy," Jacob Pike, one of the students, said.
JumpstART is unique to Greencastle, and helps to promote integration between the town of Greencastle and DePauw. At first it was difficult to get students to come to the program. Just three showed up to the first lesson. Now word of mouth in the community helps spread the word about the growing program.
"Jacob always looks forward to [JumpstART]," Brooke Pike, Jacob's mother, said.
Brooke said the program is so vital to the community because of the difficulty parents face transporting their children to Indianapolis.
Having an art program at a collegiate facility gives the students in Greencastle an opportunity to see the type of doors art can open.
In a few days Naylor leaves for New Zealand. Mary Xiao will run next month's meeting, but Naylor will continue to make lesson plans through Google Docs.
"It'll be a little different, the atmosphere will be different," said Eric Bruynseels, a sophomore. "We will miss [Naylor]."
JumpstART is important to Naylor. Indiana State funding for art has been cut in recent years. Having a class in a studio shows young people that art is more than just a hobby.
"Art can be a career and a life passion," Naylor said.