NATCHEZ — A recent class project at McLaurin Elementary School has left Natchez dotted with hundreds of replicas of the Titanic.

As part of their reading class requirements, fourth graders in all classes were required to make an art project to go along with their most recent assignment.

And their latest assignment was reading the story of the Titanic.

While the hallway at McLaurin is home to many of the homemade vessels, several have been distributed across Natchez to establishments that are part of the school’s partners in education program.

“It was a good story,” student Gregory Tillman said, while standing over his massive cardboard Titanic.

Tillman’s Titanic was one of the biggest in the hallway, and looked almost sturdy enough to be considered seaworthy.

While Tillman said he wasn’t exactly sure how long it took to build the replica, he was sure he was up past midnight working on the ship.

“It took a long time,” he said.

Though Tillman and his classmates said they enjoyed building the replicas, the school’s teachers had more than just fun in mind when the assigned the project.

Sherry Martin, a reading teacher at the school, said the shipbuilding project was meant to give the students an educational, hands-on learning experience.

In issuing the project, Martin had one main rule.

“They had to be creative,” Martin said. “That’s important.”

Martin said while the students get the benefit of hands-on learning, they also get an opportunity to improve their vocabulary skills and reading comprehension when they review the story to build their models.

The school’s principal, Alice Morrison, said she was in favor of any project that teachers could use to improve reading comprehension for the school’s students.

“We need more of that,” she said.

And more importantly Martin’s students said they learned important lessons just from reading the story.

Jerad Kennedy said the most valuable lesson he learned from the story was the importance of being prepared for emergencies.

“If you’re getting on a ship, make sure they have enough lifeboats for everybody,” he said.