Friday Finds 10/11
When I taught kids science and social studies I used images of paintings and artifacts to make abstract concepts and time periods more concrete and personable. My other “adulting” reasoning for this was to build observation skills and a classroom culture of safe and respected discourse. Here’s some ideas…
TO START: First, let’s talk about how to have students break down an image. At a workshop at The Met, I learned to cover an image in fourths and then reveal the whole. I guided students’s discussion with questions or leading statements such as “tell me more about that”. I wrote on the screen/white board their answers to “What do you see?” “What do you wonder?” “What do you think?” (handout!). During these discussions I always respond to students with a “thank you for sharing”. I stayed away from praise or correcting students unless it fell under classroom management.
RESOURCES: Museums, such as The Smithsonian’s National Gallery and the The Metropolitan Museum of Art offer vast teacher resources for using art in the classroom (I’ve linked them in there for ya). The trick is, to look for the education link on museum websites. For example, here are lesson ideas and handouts from a partnership with the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Project Zero.
APPLICATION, Social Studies: I liked to use portraits and early photos, such as this one of Fredrick Douglas (hint: take a screenshot of the enlarged picture and then place that image into the slide). I guided students through a discussion void of spoiler alerts. I never started with “this is Frederick Douglas and why he’s important”. Pictures such as this one of a blind man and his reader or people taking the census around a fireplace in 1854 bring to life the people who are not in the texts books.
APPLICATION, Science: When I started using art in social studies I wondered how to use it in science. The more I did it, I discovered that integrating art into science made it more approachable and colorful in literal and figurative ways. Here are some ways to use images and videos as visual tools for classroom discourse and assessments.
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1.The science notebook is a favorite place to start this discussion. Start with students drawing an observation of a seed, cell, reaction, etc.. Break down the image into smaller chunks, the same way you would a painting. Give students hand lenses and the time to add details and color to the point where they are encouraged to add more. Then, ask them if this is science, art or both and why. (Always crayons and coloring pencils in notebooks my friends).
The NGSS mentions diagrams as an important skill for scientific thinking. For students who struggle with writing, offer labeled diagrams of their thinking and observations as an alternative to paragraphs. Remember, you’re assessing their understanding, not their art skills.
2.Integrate historical and current contributors to society with examples of people who straddle the line between artist and scientist. Use this list of scientists who are artists to break up the predictable list for biography reports. Here are examples of artists who look to science to inspire their art and ya know, buy a dormant volcano.
3.Show videos of modern scientists inspired by the past. I LOVED using this series from PBS called “the secret life of scientists”. Use weird half days or shortened periods as artful thinking days when students observe scientific drawings of an area of interest such as botany or biology and chase questions such as “how can the principals of physics be illustrated?”.
Personal Note: Remember integrating art into your classroom is about building skills of observation, discussion and argumentation. It adds choices for students to express their understandings. Slowing down to observe details and then think about them is an art form our busy, wi-fi dependent society is slowly losing grasp of with every like and scroll. Start with one lesson and then follow your comfort level as it grows. Once you start researching this topic the resources are endless.
Enjoy this week’s finds! *drum roll* This week’s bad joke:
Q: What do you call a painting made by a cat?
A: A paw-trait!
