As far as art projects go, this one will make history. Literally.

Artist-in-Residence Robert Rossel asked a class of second-graders at Riddle Brook School, “Twenty years from now when you come back to school, what will be greeting you?”

In front of Rossel are rows of clay tiles. The individual tiles – one for each student – will eventually be formed into two murals depicting Bedford landscapes drawn by art teacher Ruth Bowler.

One will show Schoolhouse No. 7, the town hall and Riddle Farm. The other will have the Bedford Presbyterian Church and the Riddle Homestead. Both murals will have the Riddle Brook in them.

“You’ll flow with the river down the hall,” Rossel told students.

These second-graders are responsible for the sky in one of the murals. After a brief demonstration by Rossel on Friday, Nov. 14, each student tried different ways of brushing wind patterns onto their tiles, some dragged a comb over their tile, others made impressions of seashells with rollers.

“What’s exciting about this is, everybody’s going to create their own type of wind, and that’s OK,” Rossel said to students.

In all, there will be 624 tiles, one for each student from kindergarten through fourth grade at Riddle Brook School, including a few extras for some teachers. On Nov. 14, classes took turns designing their tiles. The younger students produced material for the skies and other easy-to-do areas, while the third- and fourth-graders tackled the buildings, plants and animals.

During the week of Nov. 17, Rossel returned to show students how to glaze their tiles. Then, the next phase of the project is up to him. For about a month, Rossel will fire small batches of tiles in a kiln at his Epping art studio.

Each batch spends up to 24 hours in the kiln, during which the temperature will rise to a white-hot 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit, turning the tiles brick solid. Once each firing is done, it takes two days for the tiles to cool off enough to be touched.

That process gives Rossel a chance to talk to students about chemistry and physics and he will slip in tidbits about evaporation, vitrification and other scientific concepts.

“The state loves it when we incorporate physics and art,” Rossel said.

Students also learn there is more to art than simply painting or drawing, Bowler said. The tiles offer that artistic experience to students who might not be good at some of other forms.

“This is something that, no matter what talent or skills they have, they would be able to create,” Rossel said. “It’s very forgiving.” Rossel said everyone in the school will eventually have a role to play in the project. “You can’t pull something like this off unless you have a large community,” Rossel said. “To put up 600-plus tiles is a feat.”

In the process, he said students will learn the importance of community and teamwork. In fact, students will not sign their names on the tiles to avoid a sense of individual ownership, Bowler said.

Next January or February, the tiles will be returned to the school, where the murals will be pieced together with codes written on individual tiles. The murals will then be taken apart as parent volunteers glue the tiles one by one onto the wall.

The two murals will face each other in the main hallway on the first floor. Each will stand 6 feet high, weighing 1,400 to 1,600 pounds.

This will be the third Bedford elementary school Rossel has visited as part of the artistin- residence program. He previously worked with a few grades at Peter Woodbury School. Last year at Memorial School, he led a similar school-wide mural project based on a quilt pattern. The program receives funding from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts.