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Doodles, Learning & Attention Span

Posted in Teaching & Learning on January 4, 2013| 4 Comments »

The words “draw” and “art” can be scary words. I observe this repeatedly when I interact with the public. It is for this reason that I invite the public to doodle in my traveling guest sketchbook instead of draw in it.

How people make meaning has been an interest of mine for many years. How they make meaning through drawing is of particular interest.

In this weekly column about teaching and learning, we often look at examples that involve drawing activities specific to some aspect of botany education. Less often we look at how drawing, the more expressive kind, affects understanding. We’ll do a bit more of this today.

In Do Attention Span and Doodling Relate to Ability to Learn Content from an Educational Video?, Ashley Aellig, Sarah Cassady, Chelsea Francis and Deanna Toops, student researchers at Capital University, evaluate the effect doodling has on student learning.

Thirty-four self-selected students participated in the study. Students were given paper and pens to take notes and doodle before watching a 25-minute video about communication styles (Aellig et al., 2009). Students watched the video together, then completed a questionnaire that included an assessment tool designed to measure attention span. Upon completing the questionnaire, students handed their notes, doodles and questionnaires to Aellig et al. (2009).

The research team found that there was not a significant relationship between doodling score, attention span, and the number of correct responses to the quiz about the video. Their hypothesis — students with shorter attention spans would have more complex doodles and lower scores on the video quiz — was not supported (Aellig et al., 2009). Instead what they observed were students who did very little doodling, but plenty of note taking. Of the students participating in the study, only six doodled while most of them (n=24) took notes (Aellig et al., 2009).

Why didn’t the students doodle during the video? Aellig et al. (2009) propose a few possible reasons:

  • The sample population is too embedded in the texting generation and may be less-likely to doodle.
  • The video’s content was not challenging enough.
  • The self-selected sample population (students at Capital University) are already engaged in their learning in ways that do not involve doodling.

In the discussion section of their paper, Aellig et al. (2009) propose an idea for future research about doodling in the classroom. They propose creating a doodling culture by embedding doodlers among the population of student research subjects. Their thought is that this would demonstrate to the sample population “that doodling is acceptable” as a form of notetaking (Aellig et al., 2009).

I would like to propose another suggestion to future student researchers who address this topic.

What if doodling were not left to chance? What if subjects were assigned a specific doodling activity to complete during a task, as was conducted by Jackie Andrade in her research about doodling and efficiency?

Readers, what do you think?


Literature Cited
Aellig, Ashley, Sarah Cassady, Chelsea Francis, and Deanna Toops. 2009. Do attention span and doodling relate to ability to learn content from an education video? Epistimi. 4: 21-24. Web. <http://www.capital.edu/epistimi-2009> [accessed 3 January 2013]

Epistimi is a student research journal at Capital University in Ohio.

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Discover Plants of the Chicago Region

Posted in botanical art, botany, Education, general botany, Learning Opportunities, Reference, Teaching & Learning on December 14, 2012|

Image courtesy of Kathleen Garness. All rights reserved

Image courtesy of Kathleen Garness. All rights reserved

This week we have the good fortune to learn from Kathleen Garness, a scientific illustrator in Illinois whose botanical illustrations are being used to encourage an interest in native plants in the Chicago area. Kathleen has graciously stopped by to discuss her current projects.


    ArtPlantae    : How did you become involved in the Chicago plant families project?

    Kathleen: I have become passionate about the need for natural areas restoration since joining the Chicago Botanic Garden’s Plants of Concern rare plant monitoring program in 2001. Plants of Concern (POC) uses a nationally-acclaimed systematic scientific protocol that records data about the species, its associates, threats to the population and land management history. Right now I am responsible for monitoring about 40 populations of 26 rare species at ten different sites in four counties in our region, reporting our findings to the Chicago Botanic Garden and the landowners.

    Why? Our rare, and even common, native species are being crowded out by non-native shrubs such as European buckthorn and herbaceous plants such as garlic mustard and teasel. Because of this, we are losing our valuable pollinators, and if we allow this trend to continue it will have disastrous economic and nutritional impacts on our well being, not to mention the tragic loss of so much of our botanical natural heritage.

    Several years ago I had been asked to consider “adopting” one of my monitoring sites, Grainger Woods, since it did not have a steward, and they hoped that restoration efforts would be able to keep it nearly pristine. Two years ago we achieved the highest level of natural areas protection afforded by the state. Now, over half of the site is an Illinois dedicated nature preserve. Grainger Woods has over 300 species of plants and is an important bird study area for Lake County IL, because the rare red-headed woodpecker has been known to nest there. One Saturday morning every month, in addition to our POC work (which may involve one or more extensive surveys per season per species and site) we clear the area of invasive non-native trees, shrubs or herbaceous plants.

    While the Chicago region is arguably the nation’s leader in natural areas restoration, our biennial Wild Things conference draws well over a thousand attendees from the region. Many volunteers lack a depth of botanical knowledge that, a hundred years ago, used to be an essential part of every high school curriculum. But now, this knowledge is in danger of being lost entirely. And many site managers and stewards don’t have the time to train their volunteers about the finer points of plant taxonomy, even if they felt it would be valuable. So one of the region’s leaders, Barbara Birmingham, a retired science teacher, has been trying to address that deficit by offering monthly field botany classes at her site every year for the past three years. She asked me to assist her in developing new materials, and since each month she focused on a different common plant family, and would be using these materials in coming years, I felt this was a worthwhile use of my skills and time.

    As the project evolved, we realized this could be useful region-wide, so I enlisted the help of many local scientists and stewards, emailing them the pages for their comments, according to their area of specialty. Chicago Botanic Garden’s Plant Conservation Manager of Regional Floristics, Susanne Masi, who co-authored The Sunflower Family in the Upper Midwest, edited the Asteraceae pages; Stephen Packard, director of Audubon Chicago Region and Kenneth Robertson from the Illinois Natural History Survey, contributed to the Rosaceae; and many others contributed to the rest of the series. John Balaban, one of the original Cook County North Branch stewards, and Rebecca Collings provided dedicated support from the Field Museum of Natural History here in Chicago. We are more than halfway through the project, having completed fourteen of the twenty-six most common plant families here. (Rebecca and I first become acquainted when I was asked by their botanist Bil Alverson to assist with Keys to Nature Orchids.

    The Field Museum provided the template, which was consistent with the other Rapid Color Guides they had already developed. We worked together as a team to come up with the design and content for each page, which I wrote and illustrated. We chose species that restoration volunteers might easily come across, as well as a few that are invasive or of special concern, to watch out for and report. Since we have so much biodiversity in our region, it was hard to choose, and for that I was very grateful for the team approach. Some of the families, such as the gentians and arums, were able to be completed in one page — the others were just an overview. We also wanted to suggest some of the important ecological relationships plants have to animals and used Milkweed Metropolis as that one example.


    ArtPlantae    : What are the goals of this project? How do the project sponsors – The Field Museum – plan to use this information?

    Kathleen: We will be promoting the pages next February during the
    Wild Things Conference at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The Field Museum will be giving their ecology students the pages as handouts this next field season, and providing the link to the pages so that folks can also access them via mobile technology such as smartphones or digital tablets. Stewards will be able to use them as handouts in their field botany walks and restoration instructions, too.

    And I feel a clarification is in order here – by no means are they intended to replace field guides or taxonomic keys. Rather, they are a quick visual way for folks new to natural areas exploration or restoration to begin to familiarize themselves with botany basics, not feel so intimidated by the diversity our area offers, and maybe eventually purchase a field guide such as Peterson’s or Newcomb’s. So they are intended to complement the use of field guides, providing a quick visual identification to family; from there an unknown plant can hopefully be keyed to species using a field guide or an online resource such as the USDA PLANTS Database or Flora of North America. The page set also includes a short glossary.


    ArtPlantae    : Do you envision other uses for this guide?

    Kathleen: We have shown them to regional scouting program leaders and

    Image courtesy of Kathleen Garness. All rights reserved

    Image courtesy of Kathleen Garness. All rights reserved

    high school science teachers, and some teachers are providing them to their classes for extra credit work. We would be thrilled to offer them to Mighty Acorns, a junior naturalist program sponsored by the Cook County Forest Preserve. Recently, the American Society of Botanical Artists graciously awarded me the Anne Ophelia Dowden grant for 2013, with which I will be able to offer art classes and distribute sets of materials, including these plant family pages, to five regional community centers, as outreach to underserved populations. These pages have sort of taken on a life of their own, now!


    ArtPlantae    : You have mentioned in the past that there needs to be a grassroots effort to help people “make the connection between plants and well-being.” From what you’ve observed through your work with the public, where would be a good place to start?

    Kathleen: Well, we’re hoping these materials will begin to assist with this! For the last twenty years or so, there has been a groundswell of interest in natural areas restoration, organic gardening, urban horticulture, even beekeeping, not just regionally or nationally, but worldwide. Well before this, the Midwest was blessed with being the epicenter of the ecology movement, through the pioneering work of famous naturalist Robert Kennicott, who worked for the Smithsonian Institution and was a founder of the Chicago Academy of Sciences; Stephen Forbes, who was the first head of the Illinois Natural History Survey; Henry Chandler Cowles, University of Chicago, today considered the father of ‘dynamic ecology’; Aldo Leopold; and the tireless May Theilgaard Watts, who was one of Morton Arboretum’s most famous naturalists. These intrepid naturalists got out into the field every day, marveled at the wonders of nature, made careful observations, and inspired several generations that followed. So this generation, I feel, is standing on the shoulders of giants, and we need to keep the momentum going – we need to get folks outside, to have them experience the beauty of nature firsthand on a regular basis, but also provide them the tools to really SEE and appreciate what they are looking at. That is the goal of my current botanical illustration work and I see no proper end to it. I hope artists and naturalists in other regions see the value in this and do it for their communities too.


    ArtPlantae    : You are working on another project in which economic botany and ornamental horticulture are the focus. What are the educational objectives of this project?

    Kathleen: The Oak Park Conservatory, where I am Artist-in-Residence until November 2013, has also engaged me to make similar materials about the plants in their tropical greenhouses. So far I have completed two sets – cacao and poinsettias – of the eight sets commissioned, and am now starting on the cacti and succulents. These are not family pages per se because each set’s scope is broader than just one family. I also interact with the Conservatory visitors, show them how a botanical artist works, chat about the various collections if they’re interested, and will hopefully complete my tenure there with an exhibit of new watercolors!


    ArtPlantae    : You are doing wonderful work, Kathleen. Thank you for spending time with us this week.


More About the Field Guide
The pages of Common Plant Families of the Chicago Region are standard 8.5″ x 11″ pages and fit easily into a 3-ring binder. Since they are a standard size, the pages are also easy to laminate. Users of this guide may be interested in creating their own color-coding system while learning the features of each plant family (similar to what is used in Botany Illustrated).

Featured in this guide are the following plant families:

  • Apiaceae (Parsley Family)
  • Araceae (Arum Family)
  • Asclepiadaceae (Milkweed Family)
  • Asteraceae (Sunflower Family)
  • Brassicaceae (Mustard Family)
  • Fabaceae (Legume Family)
  • Gentianaceae (Gentian Family)
  • Lamiaceae (Mint Family)
  • Liliaceae (Lily Family)
  • Onagraceae (Evening Primrose Family)
  • Orchidaceae (Orchid Family)
  • Ranunculaceae (Buttercup Family)
  • Rosaceae (Rose Family)
  • Scrophulariaceae (Snapdragon Family)

A glossary of botanical terms is also included with the guide.

The guide Common Plant Families of the Chicago Region is available online for free.


About Kathleen Garness
The botanical/scientific illustration certificate program at Morton Arboretum was the turning point for me. While I had painted watercolors of tropical orchids for many years previous, the classes at Morton refined my pen and ink skills and fueled an interest in learning about and documenting local native species.

I really enjoy my work as a volunteer natural areas steward for Grainger Woods. My two passions – preserving habitat and documenting native species – seem to feed off each other. In 2008 my colleague Pat Hayes and I were surprised with a Chicago Wilderness Grassroots Conservation Leadership Award for our work in developing educational materials for youth as part of the national Leave No Child Inside initiative.

What feels like an eon ago, I served as board member and president of the historic Palette and Chisel Academy of Fine Arts in Chicago, and am still currently active in several local and national arts organizations. One of my most exciting opportunities, though, was the acceptance of one of my paintings into the Shirley Sherwood Gallery, Kew Gardens, London, as part of Losing Paradise? Endangered Plants Here and Around the World and in the 2011 edition of Smithsonian in Your Classroom.

I am the mother of one son, Ian Halliday, who encouraged me in this work by buying me a Wacom tablet one year for Christmas when he saw me laboring over my other avocation, the illustrations for the Little Gospels, published by Liturgy Training Publications for the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd curriculum. I still have to figure out how the Master’s in Religious Education and 20+ years teaching Sunday school figures into the artist side of me, but it all seems to fit somehow!


Additional Information About Plants of the Chicago Region

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Engagement, Understanding, Communication

Posted in drawing, teaching & learning, Teaching & Learning on December 7, 2012|

According to professors Shaaron Ainsworth, Vaughan Prain and Russell Tytler, this is what makes drawing an effective learning tool.

They offer their thoughts on the subject in Drawing to Learn in Science, a paper in which they make the case that drawing circumvents the passive learning often observed in science classrooms. Their position on this topic can be summed up simply — instead of leaving students to interpret the drawings of others, have them create their own (Ainsworth et al., 2011).

The authors offer five suggestions as to why drawing makes a good learning tool. What follows is a very brief summary of the arguments Ainsworth et al. (2011) make in their paper.

    Drawing Encourages Engagement
    Passive learning can be diverted when drawing is used alongside reading and writing in the classroom. To draw means to explore and to understand.


    Drawing Deepens Understanding
    Drawing also develops visual literacy skills and provides real-time experience documenting observations.


    Drawing Develops Reasoning Skills
    Planning a drawing requires thinking through content and learning to reason in different ways.


    Drawing is a Good Learning Strategy
    Drawing is a good way to work through confusing information and transform student understanding into an observable medium.


    Drawing Makes Knowledge Public
    When knowledge becomes public, it can be shared and discussed with others.

Ainsworth et al. (2011) continue making their case for drawing in the sciences by highlighting programs that are actively researching the effectiveness of drawing in the classroom.

Drawing to Learn in Science can be purchased online for $20 or obtained by visiting your local college library.


Literature Cited
Ainsworth, Shaaron and Vaughan Prain and Russell Tytler. 2011. Drawing to learn in science. Science. 333(6046): 1096-97


Also Hear…
Shaaron Ainsworth’s interview about this paper in a podcast produced by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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Classroom Project Integrates Plant Science and Art

Posted in botanical art, botany, drawing, teaching & learning, Teaching & Learning on November 30, 2012|

It may be winter, but there is no need to wait for Spring to integrate plants and art in the classroom. All one needs to do is follow the example set by biology teacher Pat Stellflue, art teacher Marie Allen and botany professor D. Timothy Gerber. In their paper Art & Science Grow Together, they explain how they created a project that placed plants and botanical illustration high on the agenda for an entire school year.

In a program they call “Plants, Pots and Paints”, Stellflue et al. (2005) integrated the plant sciences with the arts in their work with fourth and fifth grade students. On the science side, their program addressed plant structure and function, growth stages, survival strategies and reproductive strategies. On the art side, their program focused on different media and art techniques. Key to this program was a pottery project (clay pot construction) and drawing (botanical illustration). The disciplines of botany and art came together in a series of hands-on activities in which growing, drawing, painting and dissecting (Stellflue et al., 2005) were the focus.

Using tulips, crocus, iris and daffodils as their primary study subjects, students learned about growth stages, form, function and drawing while planting and growing spring flowers and illustrating their observations.

After a full year of integrating botany and botanical art, Stellflue et al. (2005) observed that students ended the year with stronger observation skills and an enhanced understanding of plants. This became clear to the authors through the increasingly informative illustrations students created (Stellflue et al., 2005). The authors also observed students taking better care of their plants because they had built the clay pots and drainage trays themselves.

Art & Science Grow Together is available online and can be purchased for 99¢.


Literature Cited
Stellflue, Pat and Marie Allen, D. Timothy Gerber. 2005. Art and science grow together. Science & Children. 43(1): 33-35


Related Information
Resources about bulbs, seeds, plants and schoolyard gardens at ArtPlantae Books

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A Guide to Biological Illustration

Posted in scientific illustration, teaching & learning, Teaching & Learning on November 23, 2012|

Pen and ink illustrations of plants are found most often in field guides. They convey a great deal of information and are attractive works of art, even though being a “work of art” might not be their primary purpose.

Learning how to draw in pen and ink can be a challenge. Figuring out how to make marks in the proper order to create the intended effect takes some thought. After all, ink is so, so …… permanent.

One can easily find a nice selection of instructional books about working in pen and ink. Resources dedicated to drawing in the sciences, however, are a little more difficult to find but they are out there. Take for example Biological Illustration: A Guide to Drawing for Reproduction by Claire Dalby and D. H. Dalby.

This 14-page paper is a helpful introduction to drawing in pen and ink. Don’t let its age (32 years) cause you to doubt the value of the information it has. While today there may be more convenient pen and ink tools at our disposal, not to mention technologically nifty ways of creating pen and ink-like drawings with apps, nothing beats learning from people with years of experience behind them.

In their paper, Dalby & Dalby (1980) address many interesting topics. Topics such as creating diagrammatic and naturalistic images, working from dried or preserved material, and reproducing line drawings for publication. They include in their paper a 9-page guide to drawing in black and white where they discuss: dots, lines and tones; pure line drawing; tone; dots; hatching; artificial tones and tints; pens; pencils; brushes; paper; spare paper; ink; white paint; light boxes and tracing tables; linen testers and proportional dividers. I think you will find the section about hatching of particular interest. In this section, Dalby & Dalby (1980) present the fruit of the opium poppy drawn seven different ways. Here you can learn how line drawing, stippling, hatching and a combination of dots and lines can affect the appearance of a specimen.

I think you will also enjoy the troubleshooting section in which they address drawing challenges. Here Dalby & Dalby (1980) offer suggestions about how to create smooth surfaces, thin subjects, hairy subjects, small subjects, complicated subjects with too much detail, colored subjects, spirals, and intricate symmetrical subjects.

Another helpful section is the one in which the authors address printing techniques and their limitations. In this section, they provide invaluable insight that will help you plan line drawings for publication.

This paper is a wonderful addition to any drawing library. It is available online for free from the Field Studies Council. Click on the link below and scroll down to Volume 5, Number 2.


Literature Cited
Dalby, Claire and D.H. Dalby. 1980. Biological illustration: A guide to drawing for reproduction. Field Studies 5(2):307-321. Web. <http://www.field-studies-council.org/fieldstudies/date.htm> [accessed 20 November 2012]


Related

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Illustrations and the Environment

Posted in Teaching & Learning, teaching and learning on November 16, 2012|

Children’s picture books contain more illustrations of built environments than natural environments.

This is the finding of Williams et al. (2012) in The Human-Environment Dialog in Award-winning Children’s Picture Book.

J. Allen Williams Jr., Christopher Podeschi, Nathan Palmer, Philip Schwadel and Deanna Meyler evaluated 296 Caldecott award-winning books to investigate how the environment was portrayed in children’s book illustrations. Williams et al. (2012) evaluated titles winning the award between 1938 – 2008 and explain they chose to study Caldecott winners because the American Library Association considers these titles to have the best illustrations and because these titles are circulated widely among libraries. The authors explain they chose to study illustrations in children’s books specifically because they “play an important role in childhood socialization” (Williams, et al. 2012). The Caldecott award was first issued in 1938 (Williams, et al. 2012).

During their investigation of 70 years’ worth of titles, the authors evaluated 8,067 images. When evaluating images, Williams et al. (2012) recorded the following:

  • The presence or absence of natural, built or modified environments.
  • The presence or absence of domestic, wild or anthropomorphic animals.
  • The presence of interaction between humans and the environment.
  • The negative portrayal of nature or animals.
  • Story themes and objectives

Here is a summary of the main findings resulting from the authors’ statistical analysis of illustrations:

  • Built environments are present more often than natural environments. While both environments were represented more or less equally between 1948-1958, the presence of natural environments began a dramatic decline after 1960.
  • In 1953 built environments began to be depicted as the primary environment more often than natural environments. Prior to this, natural environments were more likely to be the primary environment.
  • Wild animals are more likely to be present in an image than domestic animals.
  • Wild animals are more likely to be the subject of a story than domestic animals.
  • The probability of either wild or domestic animals being depicted in an illustration declined over the 70-year study period.
  • Human interaction with nature or animals of any kind is not common and became even less so during the years 2000-2008.
  • Negative images of natural environments began to increase in the 1950s and peaked in the 1980s.
  • Negative images of built environments increased in the 1980s.
  • Negative images of domestic animals increased throughout the study period.

You might be asking yourself, “What made negative images ‘negative’? ”

Illustrations were coded as negative if they mostly showed “unpleasant or potentially dangerous natural conditions” or served “as critical commentary on environmental problems” (Williams, et al. 2012).

In discussing the findings above (and many others), Williams et al. (2012) conclude that children’s understanding and appreciation of nature is not being nurtured through the children’s books they studied. Neither is children’s understanding of the role human’s play in the environment.

The authors are concerned about illustrations in children’s books because children’s books reflect what is going on in society (Williams, et al. 2012). The authors hypothesize that two factors may be contributing to they way the environment is presented in children’s books: 1) the public’s indifference towards environmental issues and 2) the public’s declining exposure to natural environments. They make a strong case for both in their paper citing independent research and Gallup poll data. To read more about their analysis of these issues and to view a full account of their findings, get a PDF of their article
(24-hour access costs $35) or look for a copy at your local college library.


Literature Cited
Williams, J.Allen and Christopher Podeschi, Nathan Palmer, Philip Schwadel and Deanna Meyler. 2012. The human-environment dialog in award-winning children’s picture books. Sociological Inquiry. 82(1): 145-159

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Quick & Easy Lesson in Observation

Posted in botanical art, teaching & learning, Teaching & Learning on November 9, 2012|

How do you teach your students the importance of making detailed observations?

Do you use a single leaf? Leaves arranged along a stem? A single flower?

How long does it take you to make your point? To explain foreshortening?

Here is an activity to consider when the only message you want to get across is “look closely”.

In A Lemon of a Lesson, professor James Minogue shares how he uses lemons to teach elementary school students (grades 3-6) and his preservice teachers the value of looking closely. While lemons may appear to be only balls at first glance, Minogue (2008) demonstrates that they provide ample opportunity for students to make insightful observations, take measurements and even use a magnifying glass.

Minogue’s lesson in observation is comprised of six simple steps. They are:

  1. Choose a lemon from the bowl. Observe your lemon, record observations using words and a sketch.
  2. Take measurements using measuring tape and study your lemon using a magnifying lens. Record your observations.
  3. Return lemons to the bowl.
    (Note: After lemons have been returned, Minogue redistributes lemons to other areas of the classroom.)
  4. Look for your own lemon using the detailed and descriptive data you recorded.
  5. Look for a classmate’s lemon using their data. Discuss your selection with your classmate.
  6. Complete the post-activity worksheet.

Minogue (2008) conducts a post-activity discussion with students in which they share what made the search for a specific lemon easy and what made it difficult. He says during this discussion, students are quick to realize that “accurate measurements, careful sketches, and attention to distinguishing features” (Minogue, 2008) are key to making accurate observations.

Why does this lemon lesson work? Minogue (2008) explains this lesson is effective because when you ask students to study familiar objects, this opens their minds to new ways of seeing.

I am sure you already see how this activity can be applied to lessons about plant morphology and botanical art.

The worksheets Minogue uses in his activity are included with his paper. You can buy Minogue (2008) for 99¢ from the journal Science and Children.


Literature Cited
Minogue, James. 2008. A lemon of a lesson. Science and Children.
45(6): 25-27.

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