Chris McCravey, a student at River’s Bend Academy, first planned to create a sea snail, but he settled on a googly-eyed fish.

“It represents a fish on the ocean floor,” the 18-year-old said, pointing out the features of his fish-in-a-cardboard box.

The fish is decorated with purple — or maybe it’s lilac — and white crinkle paper. It swims in an ocean of blue crinkle paper, and the ocean floor is brown crinkle paper.

“A lot of people like it because it’s different colors,” McCravey said. “I didn’t just want to make the fish all one color.”

McCravey’s piece was one of many projects and artworks in the academy’s first academic and arts festival, held Friday at the school for students on the autism spectrum.

Most of River’s Bend operator Special Education Services Inc.’s high schools stage fine arts festivals, said Anne Metzger, the academy’s director.

“We wanted to do something similar,” she said. “Fine arts is more challenging, so we did an academic and arts festival.”

According to Metzger, the 41 students either individually selected their projects, like McCravey, or submitted a classroom project.

With help from staff, the students headed out to area stores to buy materials, exposing them to everyday social interaction.

Short passages explaining each project were either written by the students themselves, if they were able to, or by staff.

“They take a lot of pride in their work, and a lot of times they don’t get to show it off,” Metzger said.

Jamel Singleton was impressed by her 13-year-old son Jarrett Smith’s work. The show, she said, allowed students to explore and get creative.

“I didn’t ask what he was going to do, I just waited. And I’m pretty surprised,” she said.

Brenda Hodsdon admired the hanging paper jellyfish created by her grandson, Logan Moulton, 11.

“I think it’s impressive,” Hodsdon said. “Their capabilities are impressive.”

Jarrett’s sister Morgan Moulton was also pretty impressed. “It think it’s pretty cool,” she said. “It took him a while to do it, with all the colors and stuff.”

The box McCravey’s fish is inside has strings on the top corners, and he said he will take it home and hang it up.