ArtStream Mountain Grove Spring 2007

Mountain Grove ArtStream, 2007 Spring Session

by teaching artist Pat Hight

The Goal:

• To join Nature Journaling and observation to an Art Project

The Process:

•The Mtn. Grove Art Stream in the Spring of 2007 was aimed at 5th graders and was accomplished in 5 days. Simply put the project was turning drawings of native plants into linoleum plate prints.

On April 20, 2007 Bryant Creek Education Project hosted Mtn. Grove School at Rippee Access of the Bryant Creek in Douglas County for a stream day. This was my first contact with the 5th graders who came to my 45 minute Nature Journaling Session.  We were fortunate to have an excellent selection of native plants along Rippee Creek and that is where I held my Nature Journaling Session. This session is the only drawing lesson that these children received from me. (normally I provide a session drawing mounts at school, and a half day field trip to draw out of doors and more mounts on site at the MDC regional center in West Plains).  Due to the restricted time I abbreviated the drawing instructions and got them quickly drawing plants.
A printing room was set up next to the classroom so the printing process could begin while other students finished cutting their linoleum blocks.	Students worked in pairs to help with inking and displaying the wet prints.	Pulling the first print is always exciting.
Nature Journals were used to record information and experiences on trips to the outdoor classroom, such as results of a scavenger hunt, lists of things seen, drawings of things seen. I think with more instruction the students drawings could have been better; on the other hand, having live plants in their natural environment was very valuable in teaching some plant identification and some ethics of outdoor behavior.
Click the thumbnails to see full size versions
Two weeks later we went to the Mtn. Grove School to help the students turn their drawings into prints. There are four 5th grade classes and I saw each one of them half of a day. In this time they refined their drawings, transferred them to a linoleum plate, and printed 5 prints (two for each student, one for their classroom, and two for Bryant Creek).  For the most part the children¹s drawings were better than I thought they would be, and many of them remembered the name of at least one native plant, and had a good drawing of it.  The children completed their printmaking project  in the approximately 3 hours available time and most were interested and engaged and excited about their work so much that  when they returned to the classroom after breaks they got right back to work.  They all enjoyed the printing process and the results. In addition to the two prints we gave them their printing plates which they seemed eager to have.  This project was a lot of work for 5th graders and they embraced the work and worked hard to finish. I think these children benefited greatly from the Stream Days field trip, and from our follow up with the Art Stream printmaking project.  The Art Stream project gave them a reminder of what they learned at the creek, and gave us a nice assurance that our teaching at Stream Day had some lasting impact.    Personnel required: Three people from the project every day, plus one additional volunteer on one day, and the 5th grade science teacher. All of the other 5th grade teachers were at the Stream Day, but none  participated directly in the Art Stream beyond being flexible in their scheduling so that we could have the students in blocks of time.    Materials and teaching techniques:  (See other Art Stream descriptions).   Conclusion: I think that this Art Stream coupled with the Stream Day, was very effective in bringing the student's attention to native plants and encouraging careful observation and recording in their Nature Journals.  The printing project brought their efforts full circle to a completed project. I would have liked to have had them longer at Stream Day for more observation and drawing   and given the time constraints in was a very good project. Joining Stream Day with Art Stream and giving two sessions to Nature Journaling would be a pretty ideal teaching and learning experience.

Read the Teacher's report from the Mountain Grove Spring 2007 ArtStream (PDF)

The development of content for ArtStream has been funded through the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region VII, through the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, has provided partial funding for this project under Section 319 of the Clean Water Act.