WELLINGTON - Students at Emerald Cove Middle School celebrated the United Nations' International Day of Peace Monday by planting Pinwheels for Peace and using chalk to color the courtyard with peace symbols.

Peace Day takes place Sept. 21 of every year.

The Peace Day celebrations were a part of Emerald Cove's only art teacher Kimberly Kovacs' class.

"I thought it was a good way to start the school year off on a peaceful note," she said. Besides the pinwheel and chalk drawings she has had her students study the artwork of Peter Max, who she says was known to use symbolisms of peace in his artwork.

Pinwheels for Peace is an art installation project that was started in 2005 by two Broward County art teachers. According to their Web site 1.2 million pinwheels were planted in 2007. While the chalking idea came from Chalk4Peace, which was started in 2003 in Arlington, Va.

"I think it's nice people are starting to think about world peace because it needs to recognized around the world," said student Cassi Kahant, 13, of Lake Worth. "This is fun. I wish there were more peace projects to do."