By Michelle Durham

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Passengers at Philadelphia International Airport now have some unique artwork to enjoy, created by students from the city’s Grover Washington Jr. Middle School.

Washington Middle is one of more than 30 schools that have participated in the airport’s nationally recognized art program.

The work, in Terminal C, is called “Tectonic Quilt,” and nearly 100 students (with the help of six teachers) created the project, which is 20 feet long and features, in colored paper, a maplike representation of the world’s countries.  The flags and coats-of-arms of various nations are strategically placed within the work.

Ebony, an 8th grader (second from right in top photo), said she was thrilled to see the mural completed.

“It feels really good. We all worked really hard, and to know that our work is being appreciated and displayed up in the airport, where a lot of people can see it, it feels really wonderful,” she said today.

Their teacher, Jerry Jackson, says it took them an entire school year to create, and the children learned a lot about geography in the process.

“The kids were saying, ‘What is this? How do you say this?’ It was pretty neat.”

And Philadelphia International Airport CEO Mark Gale was delighted to accept the piece.

“We couldn’t be more proud of them,” Gale said.  “When their family members come through, they can go over and say, ‘I did that!’ and that is pretty special.”

A glass-tile mosaic by local artist Ava Blitz (below) was also unveiled today, at Terminal B.

(Artist Ava Blitz stands in front of her mosaic at Philadelphia International AIrport. Photo by Michelle Durham)

—-