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Krissy Ponden

Nerushka and James, Aiko.

Unsung heroes are individuals who accomplish incredible acts of bravery and compassion during their lifetimes but remain largely unknown to contemporary generations. As an ARTEFFECT Ambassador for the 2023–2024 school year, I was excited to bring the stories of these heroes to my seventh-grade classroom.

What Is ARTEFFECT?
ARTEFFECT is an annual competition in which middle- and high-school students share the stories of unsung heroes through art. Students can work in any media to create their artwork. They also submit a written impact statement that outlines the hero’s contributions, how the student portrayed the heroʼs story through art, and what the student took away from the experience.

The Ambassador Program
The ambassador initiative was created by the Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes to foster the visual arts through project-based learning. From October to April, ARTEFFECT ambassadors participated in a series of six virtual modules, four of which were open to all educators and two of which were specific to the ambassador cohort. We learned how to guide students in discovering the stories of the more than one hundred unsung heroes listed on the center’s website. Each of these individuals were discovered by students as part of the Lowell Milken Center’s Discovery Award Competition, and their stories reveal a wide range of heroic actions.

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