The untitled sculpture, a floating mass of shiny tubular aluminum that somehow looked soft, evoked images of jellyfish, or maybe a commercial air-conditioning unit run amok.

"What do you see?" asked Hal Graff, a docent for the 55th Carnegie International contemporary art exhibit in Oakland.

"It's like an alien city," said Michelle Gibbs, a student at Bethel Park High School.

"I see flowers, petals, metal -- technology is taking over nature," added classmate Shannon Coyle.

"There are no wrong answers," replied Mr. Graff.

This wasn't your average field trip to the museum. Fifteen Bethel Park students joined English language arts teachers Charles Youngs and Pamela Sanders last Friday in a tour of the Carnegie International, with an eye toward drawing inspiration for creating podcasts, poems, blogs and essays.

"I think the media literally is part of the lesson," said Mr. Youngs, who had the students create brief audio podcasts immediately after the tour.

The students were able to record the podcasts -- short audio takes -- via their cell phones. Most were under four minutes, and were done by small groups of two or three students commenting on one specific piece in the exhibit.

They also wrote short blogs, or online essays of commentary, opinions, or first-person reports, once they returned to school that afternoon. The blogs were posted to the Carnegie Museum of Art Web site. In the next week of so, the podcasts will be uploaded as well.

Visitors to the site will be able to post their comments and reactions to the students' work.

"We're really pioneering here," said Mr. Youngs, who has worked with the Carnegie's student programs and is an education consultant to the museum.

"We did this once before, but it was in the summer in connection with West Virginia's Governor's School."

Mr. Youngs has been taking Bethel Park students to the museum since 2003. In the weeks before the trip, they went online and studied the various works they would be seeing.

After more than an hour of viewing the International's works, students were given free rein to wander the galleries and choose one piece that, according to the assignment "captivates the attention of you and your partner[s]."

"Things aren't always what they seem," said Miss Sanders. "What I want the kids to see and think about is: What do we know? What do we think we know?"

Amy Carroll, Julie Tanner and John Szott were intrigued by artist Mark Bradford's collage, "A Truly Rich Man Is One Whose Children Run Into His Arms When His Hands Are Empty."

The large work, which represented a "cultural mapping" using raw materials such as paint, posters, comic book pages, fence signs, scraps of paper and string, resembled the satellite picture-from-space imagery of a Google Earth Web page.

"[The assignment] lets you express your feelings, make it a little personal," John said. "You're taking that chance, letting people know what you think."

"It's raw," added Amy.

The realization that in art, there are no rights or wrongs, said Julie, was a freeing concept: "It's disappointing that there are so many restrictions in life, times where you can't quite fit in."

If only the technology had cooperated. They recorded their podcast, then realized a short while later that it had not "saved" properly to the Web site.

So they assembled again in front of the Bradford piece, passing the phone around and, this time, made it work.

"I think it's important for them to remember they are not simply writing and podcasting among themselves, but to other readers and listeners around the world who stop and visit the Web site," Mr. Youngs said.

"Outside of the blog, they will be using their experience with the exhibition to inspire creative works and will be encouraged to post poems, stories, and vignettes to the blog."

Jordan Crosby, the museum's education specialist and coordinator for its School & Teacher programs, has been working with Mr. Youngs in taking what the students experience in the museum and turning it into a long-term project.

"This brings up another component that Jordan Crosby and I have been interested in, recursive reflection of art and writing over time. So as students visit the gallery on the school visit and some return on their own, and return to the Web site to learn more about their favorite works, checking out artists biographies and other information on the Web, they not only are viewers but also creators of content," Mr. Youngs said.

The students' blogs can be read at blog.cmoa.org/classrooms/bethel_park_life_on_mars/.