Second grade is for the birds.

Through a partnership with the Mattress Factory -- a museum of contemporary installation art on Pittsburgh's North Side -- students in two Wexford Elementary classrooms are using their ornithological knowledge to create a permanent masterpiece.

By the end of May, the school's foyer will be filled with dozens of winged creatures hatched from cardboard, plaster gauze and paint.

"I really wanted to bring installation art to Wexford," says art teacher Barb Scheller. "This is a unique type of art and will be a new experience for our school."

Funding for the project was provided by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Wexford Elementary is one of five area schools participating in the artist residency program, which the Mattress Factory instituted in 2003.

Helping the children transform old boxes into birds is Tom Sarver, a local artist and organizer of the annual Black Sheep Puppet Festival. He will make approximately 10 visits to the school over the next month.

It's not enough to say that Sarver's work is his life. His home -- a colorful abode located next to the Mattress Factory on Sampsonia Way -- is an ever-changing and interactive exhibit comprised of puppets, sculptures and paintings.

Students toured "The Tom Museum" after visiting their feathered friends at the National Aviary, another North Side institution.

Using the information gleaned from the field trip, along with lessons learned in Julie Seifert's and Lisa Olson's classrooms, students are painstakingly building life-sized birds from beak to tail.

Many of Western Pennsyl-vania's avian residents will be represented in the installation, including vultures, sparrows, woodpeckers, yellow warblers, robins, ducks, geese and -- the class favorite -- bald eagles.

Sarver cut, folded and stapled the birds' cardboard skeletons and then helped students wrap each creature in gauze. When the plaster dries, the children will paint the "mummified" birds, based on pictures plucked from a National Audubon Society field guide.

"This project is all about teamwork," Sarver explains. "We'll use these birds to transform an empty space and make it look like a living flock of birds is flying through it."

The magnum opus, which is entitled "Soaring to New Heights," will be a permanent fixture at Wexford Elementary. Anna Fitzpatrick, Mattress Factory education director, hopes it has a lasting effect on the students as well.

"At the Mattress Factory we emphasize the importance of the process in creating art," she says.

"It involves problem-solving, thinking critically, negotiating with materials, adjusting your vision and working collaboratively. If students have a meaningful experience that employs all of these things, the installation/final outcome of the project is the icing on the cake."