THE EARTH WORKS PROJECT
Earth Works is intended to promote interdisciplinary learning activities in which teachers and students work together to study their local environment and then use the power of art to show how we can better co-exist with the natural world. Group investigations that involve different curricular perspectives and that lead to the production of paintings, murals, drawings, sculptures, websites, zines, artist books, multimedia installations, public performances, poetry, or other creative expressions are encouraged. Student projects might address:
- Raising public awareness about issues facing their local environment.
- Sharing their ideas for addressing environmental problems.
- Informing us about nature and its processes, or about environmental problems we all face on the planet.
- Exploring the characteristics, origins, and consumption of natural and man-made materials used in making art.
- Re-envisioning our relationship to nature by proposing new ways for us to co-exist with nature.
- Encouraging others to take better care of our natural resources.
Once projects are completed, teachers are encouraged to submit visual (photographs or video) and written documentation of their students' learning and accomplishments to this site for dissemination. Depending on the nature of the work, we will either link to it (i.e., if it is displayed elsewhere on the Web) or display it in our online gallery.
AGE GROUPS
Open to all ages.
MEDIA
Any media can be used including drawing, painting, collage, bookmaking, sculpture, murals, mosaics, printmaking, photography, digital imagery, multimedia presentations, and website design. Limited only by the teacher's and students' imaginations.
CURRICULUM AREAS
Visual Arts, Science, Environmental Studies, Geography, History, Language Arts.
STUDENT INVOLVEMENT
This may vary from class to class, and school to school. While this project may involve individual students working on their own, collaborative efforts involving small groups or even whole classes are encouraged.
If you plan to display student art work on this Web site at the completion of your project, you need to have completed parental permission forms on file for each of your students whose work will be displayed. You may use your school's Internet permission forms, if such forms exist. Otherwise, download the parental permission form for displaying student work that is available on this site.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE
Teachers interested in discussing this project with other teachers are encouraged to use the Earth Works discussion folder. Contact Craig Roland to arrange to have your students' work displayed on this site.
SUBMITTING STUDENT WORK
There are several ways to submit visual documentation of student work for display on this website, depending upon the nature of the work:
- If the work is flat and can fit on a flatbed scanner, scan the work at 72 dpi/ppi and save it as a JPEG file. If you have a image-processing program like Adobe Photoshop, please crop each image to its edges and reduce the size of the image to no larger than 400 x 500 pixels (approximately 5 by 4 inches or 30 by 40 cm.) Resave the image as a jpg file (e.g., picture1.jpg). These images can then be submitted as e-mail attachments.
- If the work is too large to scan (e.g., a mural) or if it is three-dimensional, then take digital photographs of the work if possible. These images can then be submitted as e-mail attachments.
- If the work is a student-produced Web site that is stored on a school's web server, then submit the URL (web address) to Craig Roland. A link to your school site will be made from the Earth Works page.
In addition to visual documentation, please submit a one-page written description of your project that includes its goal(s), a list of collaborating teachers or other partners, a brief summary of what students learned in the project, and any additional information about the project that you feel is relevant.
ONLINE RESOURCES
A list of links to related websites is available to support classroom projects. Before using any of these sites in the classroom, it is recommended that teachers review the content of the sites to ensure that they are appropriate for their students to visit.
COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS?
Direct any comments or questions regarding these pages or the project itself, contact Craig Roland.
