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Archive for the ‘Teaching & Learning’ Category

Visual Botany: Expanding the future of botanical illustration

Posted in Education, Photography, Teaching & Learning, tagged on March 6, 2015|

“Niki Simpson is an artist who has been awarded many medals from the Royal Horticultural Society (four for photography and four for watercolor). In 2003, she developed a technique to create composite botanical illustrations. Simpson’s digital composite images challenge the current thinking about botanical painting’s superiority over photography. Her objective is to present ‘new possibilities for the future of botanical illustration’ (Simpson & Barnes, 2008).”

This is how I introduced Niki Simpson as the Feature Artist in July 2011. Since then Niki has continued to develop her digital botanical illustration technique and has successfully made significant contributions to the future of botanical illustration. You can read about her progress and how she creates digital illustrations on her new website Visual Botany.

Supporting Botanical Science

I felt that the possibilities of digital plant illustration for scientific work needed to be explored if botanical illustration was going to support botanical science in the future. And so, my digitally created composite botanical images are very much based on my watercolour paintings and my botanical pencil and watercolour studies.

— Niki Simpson

Launched in December 2014, Visual Botany is an exciting place to visit and a resource you will want to bookmark whether you are a botanical artist, a teacher or a dedicated gardener.

When first arriving at Visual Botany, you will discover a slideshow of images introducing you to Niki’s educational illustrations. Explore a little deeper and you will learn how Niki’s digital botanical illustrations are based on her traditional (and award-winning) botanical art. You will learn how to read the digital illustrations in her gallery and learn how Niki has used technology to introduce new audiences to plants. In the online gallery, you will find botanical plates similar in appearance to traditional botanical plates. You will also find an exciting habitat illustration of Lathraea clandestina (Purple toothwort). This single image demonstrates the palpable connection between plants, Earth and people Niki’s digital illustration technique is capable of creating.

I encourage you to visit Visual Botany and to share it with students and colleagues.


Literature Cited

    Simpson, Niki and Peter G. Barnes. 2008. Photography and contemporary botanical illustration. Curtis’s Botanical Magazine. 25(3): 258-280.
    (View or buy online)

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Peas, Soil & Drawing Science

Posted in Teaching & Learning on February 20, 2015|

This week the featured article for the Plants, Life, Riverside project is also the featured article for this week's teaching and learning column.

Today we learn about legumes, soil science, a soil science kit for teachers and an affordable guide to drawing science.

Find out how you can download classroom resources by reading the current installment of Plants, Life, Riverside.

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Workshop for Educators Combines Art and Life Science

Posted in botanical art, Education, Learning Opportunities, Special Announcements, Special Articles & Interviews, Teaching & Learning on February 13, 2015| 2 Comments »

The ART+BIO Collaborative has announced a professional development workshop for educators teaching in formal and informal learning environments. Program participants will have special access to art work from the public and non-public collections of the new Harvard Art Museums, as well as areas not frequently accessed by the public.

Information about the new workshop, plus information about upcoming trips to Puerto Rico and the southwest are listed below. This information has been added to the Classes Near You sections for Massachusetts, Texas and New Mexico.

After reading about the new classes, be sure to move on to the conversation with the instructors of the professional development workshop.


    ART+BIO Collaborative
    www.artbiocollaborative.com
    The ART+BIO Collaborative in Cambridge, MA fosters the integration of science, nature, and art through novel collaborations, research, and education. They design innovative art+science curriculum and turn public spaces into interactive learning environments.


    NEW! Professional Development Workshop for Educators

    Combining Comparative Anatomy & the Visual Arts:
    A Professional Development Workshop for Educators
    Dates: April 20- 22, 2015 from 1-4:30pm

    Location: Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge MA, 02138
    
Fee: $25, Does not include museum admission

    This ART+BIO Collaborative workshop introduces educators to creatively combining visual art and life sciences to engage students in creative art-making and deeper learning of advanced scientific concepts. Working from museum collections and exhibits at the Harvard Art Museums and Harvard Museum of Natural History, participants will use biological illustration to learn about comparative anatomy and evolution. Participants will design creative art+science collaborations for their own classrooms and participate in collaborative art-making.  This workshop is ideal for 6th-12th grade Art and Science teachers, however, all grade levels and informal educators welcome, along with any artists, naturalists or students interested in creative, interdisciplinary teaching and learning approaches. No previous drawing or science experience necessary.  This workshop is part of the 2015 Cambridge Science Festival. 
    Pre-Registration required. Participants will earn 10 Professional Development points.

    Sign-up Today!

    Download flyer, share with friends and colleagues

    Download flyer


    ISLAND LIFE: Tropical Field Studies of Art+Nature in Puerto Rico, March 8-14, 2015- Spring Break
    Embark on an artistic exploration of the diverse tropical wildlife of Puerto Rico, including rainforest, mountain, beach and coastal environments.
    View Details/Register


    DESERT LIFE: Field Studies of Art+Nature in the Southwest
    June 26-July 2, 2015
    Discover the unique beauty of the desert in this one-of-a-kind artistic journey through white sand dunes, black lava rock, desert caves, and mountain landscapes of West Texas and New Mexico.
    View Details/Register


A Conversation with Stephanie Dowdy-Nava and Saul Nava
Stephanie Dowdy-Nava, primary instructor of the professional development (PD) workshop and co-founder of the ART+BIO Collaborative would like to start a conversation with you about science and art. You can join in the conversation by responding to her prompt below. Please respond by typing your comments in the Comment box.

Integrating biology and art helps students understand advanced scientific concepts more deeply and fully engage their creativity through informed, thoughtful artmaking. The PD program focuses on designing creative collaborations between natural history and the visual arts using comparative anatomy and biological illustration.  What are some creative ways you have successfully integrated art and science in your classroom, studio or lab? Share your ideas here and they could become part of our workshop discussion.

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And you thought wilting flowers were bad…

Posted in Teaching & Learning, teaching and learning on February 6, 2015|

Cut flowers wilt before your eyes.
Slender plants bend in the wind.
Leaves sag when a branch is cut off a plant or when a plant is removed from soil.

There is no way to avoid these scenarios. Change is inevitable.
How to get comfortable with all this change?

How can you teach students they can adapt to change?

Consider this five-minute exercise created by art educator, Sarah Grow.
Grow describes this simple activity in The Not-So-Still Life, a one-page article published in SchoolArts magazine.

Grow developed her activity after reading Ten Lessons the Arts Teach by Elliot Eisner and modeled it after Lesson #4 which states:

Learning in the arts requires the ability and willingness to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds.

To teach this lesson in her classroom, Grow creates a still life using a bowl, apples, an artichoke, a potato and a container of mints. She then informs her students they have five minutes to draw the arrangement she has set before them.

When students are one-minute into their drawing, Grow takes a bite out of an apple and moves the potato. At Minute 2, she takes another bite out of an apple and switches the position of the mints and the artichoke. At Minute 3 and Minute 4, she changes things even more. At Minute 5, her student’s drawings are complete.

While Grow’s students might think she is a bit out of her mind at Minute 1, they catch on to what she is doing, surrender to the unanticipated changes and deal with the problems they encounter, each in their own unique way.

Grow created this activity for middle school students. It is available online for free.


Literature Cited

The Botany Studio

Posted in Education, general botany, Photography, Plants, Teaching & Learning, teaching and learning on January 30, 2015|

Four years ago we learned about The Botany Studio at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. The Studio’s senior artist, Kandis Elliot, was our guest and their poster about fungi had received First Place for Informational Graphics in the eighth annual International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge 2010 sponsored by the journal Science and the National Science Foundation.

Today the Botany Studio operates a Botany Outreach Store featuring not only their collection of botany posters, but also digital media and selected publications about the plants of Wisconsin.

If you’re looking for posters about plants for your classroom or program, be sure to visit the Botany Studio. You’ll find posters about the following topics:

  • Introduction to Fungi
  • Classification of Fruits
  • Specialization in Flowers
  • Plant Modifications
  • Pollination and Pollinators
  • Carnivorous Plants
  • Plant Colors
  • Life Cycle of Arabidopsis thaliana
  • The Annotated Big Bucky
  • The Tree of Life

These posters would be a great addition to a classroom, lab, or nature center.
Be sure to take a look!


More about the Botany Studio

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Classroom Resource: The History of Color in Art

Posted in Education, teaching & learning, Teaching & Learning on January 23, 2015|

Why is the White House white?
What do bugs have to do with color?
What’s the difference between pigments and dyes?

These questions are answered in The Brilliant History of Color in Art, a new book by journalist Victoria Finlay.

Published by the J. Paul Getty Museum, this new book is accompanied by a collection of activities, handouts and lesson plans teachers can use in their classrooms.

Handouts about the following topics are available:

  • Discussion questions for the Brilliant History of Color in Art
  • An online quiz
  • Elements of Art (line, shape, forms, space, color, texture)
  • How to Make Paint (using pigments, instant coffee, Kool-aid or chalk).
  • Principles of Design
  • Watercolor Techniques

Also available are seven lesson plans for K-12 students and two virtual self-guided tours to help teachers prepare for their visit to the Getty Museum or the Getty Villa. These items are available in the Education section on the website of the J.Paul Getty Museum.

Learn more about this fascinating topic. Watch this short YouTube video.

The Brilliant History of Color in Art is available at The Getty Store or from your local independent bookstore.


Related

Ecoliteracy Curriculum Emphasizes Plant Restoration, Natural Dyes

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A Conversation with Gretchen Kai Halpert

Posted in Education, Learning Opportunities, scientific illustration, Teaching & Learning on January 2, 2015| 5 Comments »

Last week I posted an announcement about the new distance learning program in scientific illustration taught by natural science illustrator, Gretchen Kai Halpert. Today we have the opportunity to learn more about this program.

You are invited to join the conversation with Gretchen below. Gretchen is happy to answer your questions about her new program. If you have a question related to one of the topics below, please post your question in the proper thread. If you have another question you would like to ask, please enter it in the Comment box below. Thank you.


Save the Date
The next 10-week session of Gretchen’s distance learning program begins
January 20, 2015. To register, contact Gretchen.

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