Local schools, artists bring Lake Bonneville back to life

Lake Bonneville dwindled into the Great Salt Lake more than 10,000 years ago, but local artists and students have brought back a bit of its former glory.

A crocheted coral reef currently occupies center stage in the lobby of Westminster’s Meldrum Science Center. Made through months of collaborative effort between Bobbi Lewin and her fellow artists, fourth graders at Hawthorne Elementary, and Westminster College’s Great Salt Lake Institute, the reef is populated by dozens of coral forms, brine shrimp, seaweed and more. Hawthorne students primarily contributed seaweed to the project, learning to finger-crochet under the instruction of some of the artists. The fourth graders also received lessons in lake ecology from GSLI students.

“The idea was for the kids to see the critters and environment of the Great Salt Lake, and interpret that into something real,” GSLI Coordinator Jaimi Butler said.

The Lake Bonneville Reef is only a small part of an international environmental awareness project. Australian sisters Margaret and Christine Wertheim started the Hyperbolic Crochet Reef Project in Los Angeles in 2005, to help combat the pollution damaging the Great Barrier Reef. Since then, 22 satellite reefs have grown up worldwide.

The Lake Bonneville satellite ultimately began when Lewin found the international exhibits online. She decided that Salt Lake should have one too, and recruited help from the GSLI, Hawthorne and two other Salt Lake District schools, as well as Brolly Arts, an umbrella organization for local artists.

“I believed we could make it happen,” she said.

Lewin and her fellow crochet artists spent the better part of a year meeting at the Tea Grotto in Sugar House and building the reef piece by piece.

Since we have no ocean near us in Salt Lake City, our local satellite reef is based on what Lake Bonneville used to be like -- a freshwater environment that supported many life forms. However, the main idea is to encourage more appreciation of the largely undervalued modern Great Salt Lake, and raise awareness of our environment as a whole, according to Butler.

Hawthorne student Matthew Taylor became more aware of his environment after participating in the reef project. “Now I look at individual things more carefully,” he said in an after-project survey.

The reef is a mobile display and will next be housed at the Salt Lake City Main Library, most likely during “Water Week” in May. Brolly Arts has tentative future plans for one or more organized crocheting parties that the community can participate in to help expand the reef to fit its new space and theme.

“That’s part of the fun of it, that it continues to evolve,” Brolly Arts Founder and Director Amy McDonald said.