By Christine Elder
I feel blessed to combine my life-long loves of nature and art with children. For over twenty years, I’ve put my training as a biologist, experience as an educator, and right brain as an artist in the service of turning kids on to nature through art, and conversely, to art through nature.
I believe that the arts and sciences can be gateways to each other, as one discipline can entice students to become fascinated (or at least comfortable!) with the other.
Through the years, I’ve worked as an environmental educator with both children and adults for organizations including the U.S. Forest Service, The Nature Conservancy, and The Monterey Bay Aquarium, and led nature drawing workshops & field trips for natural history museums, conservation organizations, biological research labs, art centers and schools-from kindergarten to college!
During the school year, I’m often asked to collaborate with middle schools, where I develop and teach custom programs that integrate arts and sciences curricula. I enjoy the challenge of creating educational and fun programs that incorporate the State educational standards. In the summer, I teach my popular workshop series Drawing From Nature at my studio.
When I’m not teaching, I run a biological illustration and graphic design business – SciLuminArt – that I founded and operate from my downtown studio in the Sierra foothills hamlet of Grass Valley, California. My most recent project was designing and illustrating Joshua Tree National Park’s new Junior Ranger book, that I found to be my most rewarding project to date.
During Environmental Education week, I look forward to hearing from you – educators, artists and scientists alike – to chat about ways to best integrate the disciplines of arts & sciences in the service of not only educating our children about nature’s processes, but becoming inspired by its beauty and thus working to preserve it for future generations. As the saying goes “We only save what we love, and love what we know.”
I invite you to visit my website at http://www.ChristineElder.com/teaching.html where you’ll find free educational materials I’ve developed and information about my upcoming classes.
© Christine Elder
Do you have questions about incorporating nature drawing into your lesson plans? If you do, then ask Christine!
ArtPlantae Today 
Hi Christine,
Beautiful article. The best way to integrate nature and art is to make sure kids have an opportunity to be in a nature setting. Thanks for being part of that. I’m doing my best with my own two kids, and by gosh, I think they’ve “got it!” :)
Kathy
Fantastic Article!! Been working with kids for 30+ years incorporating the arts~in the woods & on the water! So excited about having company. It truly is a ‘natural’ connection and kids respond to the being outdoors and the arts help them reflect upon their experiences. The early experiences they have outdoors helps shape the rest of their lives and the attitudes they have about our place in the world~
Capt. Suz Wallace, MFA
Bogue Sound, North Carolina
seaQuest studio
Dear Kathy, you are absolutely right. We may take it for granted, but many children do not have access to nature. I used to teach on the coast, and met kids from disadvantaged families, who lived just five miles from the beach and had NEVER BEEN to the beach!
Dear Suz,
Yes, getting kids outdoors early in their childhood is essential. Just as kids learn languages best in their formative years, they also are most open to learning about and loving nature when young. For me, those memories included holding my father’s hand, as he led me through our high alpine forests, and riding my ponies along old logging roads, and at the beach, feeding snails to the sea anemones!
Wonderful imagery Christine…..nothing prepared me for my son’s first walk on a maritime forest path. Normally my heading would be down to the water, but not this time. A walk with a toddler teaches one to slow down, notice everything and remember the joy in wonder! I will never forget that wonderful memory on the mesmerizing forest floor….we never did get down to the water that day. There were just too many flowers opening, insects buzzing, amphibians in the brook, butterflies on the wind and beautiful things to admire anew through the eyes of a child~
Dear Suz and Kathy,
Clearly we’re seeing a trend here, that starting kids off in nature as toddlers is best-and that job is up to the parents and other family members at this early age before school starts with its opportunities there (hopefully, like school gardens). Thus, the challenge is educating parents, and providing disadvantaged ones with the opportunities to get their kids out in nature, or involved with some sort of ‘preschool’ environmental education opportunities in their communities. This could tie in nicely with first lady Michelle Obama’s efforts to trim kids down and get in shape – what’s more invigorating than a run down a wooded path or romp through a blossoming meadow!!
What types of activities are good for very young students (K-1)? Given their short attention spans, how long should a drawing activity be? Or, is doing a type of nature printing activity with a young audience better? easier? more successful?
Dear Tania,
Nature activities for young children do certainly need to be focused in a differnt direction than for older kids. I primarily work with middle schoolers, and their prime interest seems to be “how do I make this drawing look real?” . Whereas, a first grader does not yet have the fine motor skills to create accurate drawings so you’d want to instead, take advantage of other skills in getting this youngest audience turned on to the beauty of nature. Your idea of nature printing is a good beginning. While they don’t have the motor skills, they do have excellent visual observation skills, so here’s two ideas.
1) Scavenger Hunt. I can imagine that an activity such as a scavenger hunt, where they are to look for as many different shaped leaves as possible, then do an art project with the collected leaves, such as a collage, would be fun and enlightening.
2) Rock Sculpture. Another visual activity I learned from a colleague is making a ‘rock sculpture’ . Take the kids to a beach or other rocky or pebble-y location and have them break into teams and collect pebbles of similar colors. Then have them reconvene and create a design in the sand that takes into account the spectrum of colors in the rocks. This same activity could be adapted to older kids where you incorporate learning about the rock cycle and geology and minerals. So there’s a start… good luck!
Thanks, Christine!