7th Grade Art of Conservation

Every year my 7th grade class, which runs second semester, makes artwork for either the Jr Duck Stamp Program or the State Fish Art Contest. Both programs teach about conservation through art and pull in a lot of science. We are able to cover a lot of drawing skills as well and it tends to build confidence so I love starting with it. 

On the first day of the unit, I ask students to draw a duck/goose or a fish and I don’t give much more instruction than that. I tell students it is their pre-assessment so I don’t offer any help or advice other than “do your best”. It’s so much fun to look at the before and after for each student at the end of the unit. It’s not usually the same animal but you can still see so much growth!

Here are the finished artworks from last January! The situation will be a little different this year but I'm going to figure out how to make it work.

This drawing placed in the State Fish Art Contest last year!

There's a Bass in my Art Room!

My primary and intermediate kids have just finished their artwork for either the Jr. Duck Stamp program or the State Fish Art contest. Snow days messed up the scheduling a bit so I had to extend the deadline for some of my 1st-3rd grade students to this week. We have a teacher work day on Friday and the majority of my time will be spent photographing and preparing the artwork to mail in. I felt like I was able to be more thorough in my instruction this year after I learned so much at the Jr. Duck Stamp ambassador workshop in Utah last September. (Read about that here and here.) I was able to add many more reference photos to my collection.

My addition to the fish program was to borrow the Catfish my dad caught when I was 19 months old! Phyl may have a dragon in her art room, but I have a Channel Catfish in mine! There were a couple awkward attempts to explain how taxidermy works, and a few students thought the fish was "gross", but the main reaction was interest and awe. Most of my students have never had the opportunity to go fishing so they haven't seen a real fish outside of a zoo or aquarium. I left the fish out for a couple days but after it got knocked over- twice- and the tail cracked, I realized the students just weren't aware enough to keep their distance. The fish retired to my closet and was just brought out for specific students who were brave enough to draw from it instead of a photo.

I had a table set up with reference photos for each contest, organized by species. The State Fish Art website has cool fact sheets about each species that helps remind students of what would make an appropriate habitat for the background of their artwork and also helped with essays.

Fish photos are pretty easy to keep organized since I only chose the 3 species the students would be most familiar with in our par of Kansas. I have many more duck reference photos and last year simple stacks were too hard for the students to keep organized. This year, I taped labels to the table thinking that if the students couldn't recognize the proper place from their photo, they could read the species name labeled on the back of the photos and match them up. This helped a bit... or maybe after the second class period that I made the students go fix the mess they created, they just started to pay more attention. To help with habitat, I printed a bunch of reference photos I took at the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge in Utah. Some are "zoomed out" and some are close up photos of wetland vegetation. I also took a cue from the State Fish Art contest and created "bio" sheets for each of the waterfowl species I have photos of. I asked the students to read the bio for their bird before they drew the background to give them clues. Wood ducks nest in tree cavities? Gee, maybe you should draw the duck standing on a fallen tree instead of that rock at the zoo in the photo.

It looks like I forgot to take a picture of my big display on my fancy new classroom bulletin board but it was basically a combination of the displays from last year seen here with some new materials I picked up on my Ambassador trip.

Students are always excited to see artwork I've made so I brought in some examples. Wood Duck watercolor painting on the left, colored pencil Canada Goose I made for an example a few years ago, and a mixed media picture of a hen Mallard and ducklings on the right.

I can't wait to go through and see the results of all the students' hard work. I just wish we had more Art time to devote to the project. I had students waiting to work in the Art room every time I had open slots available for them on my days at the intermediate school. :)

1st-3rd Grade Fish

Here are some of the 1st-3rd grade results from the State Fish Art contest. When I started this lesson with my 4th-6th grade students, I thought they had to use a Channel Catfish since it is the (unofficial) state fish of Kansas. I found out I was just confused from it being my first year trying the program so the younger students had more choices. I chose fish I thought they would be familiar with in addition to catfish- Bluegill and Largemouth Bass. The primary students used a combination of colored pencils and  Crayola Color Sticks. This was awesome in comparison to last year where I spent most of my time sharpening colored pencils or unclogging pencil sharpeners. When color sticks were used most of the time, no sharpening was required! You'll also see below that some of the students created interesting textures in the water by rubbing color sticks on their side.

You can read more about this lesson here: http://artteacheradventures.blogspot.com/2012/06/art-of-conservation-ducks-and-fish.html  and more about the State Fish Art Contest here: http://www.wildlifeforever.org/contest

The Art of Conservation

Even though there are 4 elementary Art teachers in my district (splitting 7 schools), we hardly ever teach the same lessons to our students. One project that the elementary students do across the district is the Jr. Duck Stamp program. This year I'm giving the students the choice of the Jr. Duck Stamp program or the State Fish Art contest. Both programs have similar aims of connecting kids to nature and teaching conservation through the Arts. They are both integrate science- observational skills, anatomy, and learning about animals' natural habitats. Duck stamps are about conserving the wetlands and the State Fish Art contest educates kids about fish and aquatic habitats. 

If you've been reading for a while, you know I love my bulletin boards. The visual of the Art hanging in the halls is usually how I share what we are doing but  I don't hang ducks in the hallway- most are sent in to the contest (while some go home to be finished and disappear.) So, I compiled some information to remind students what the project is all about, and share it with parents and teachers.

 (Click to view a larger version and read the signs.)

Design of the bulletin board:

I have the background painted bright orange so I don't have to cover it with paper. I wanted to make it look a little swampy so I cut blue paper to go at the bottom for water and tore brown and green pieces to look like plants. I made my title with the die cut machine but decided to use different sizes and the negative space of the letters to add interest. I rarely plan out the arrangement ahead of time. I just get a feel for it and start stapling. 

I also added some "Did You Know" facts at the bottom next to ducks. Did you know that more than 1/3 of the animals on the Endangered Species list rely on the wetlands for their survival? (Either for habitat or food source.)

When I moved into my new 4th-6th grade classroom, I put up a word wall, convinced that it would just be a great idea. My best intentions failed since I rarely had time to make and put up new words. (I've seen some word walls with post-its for quick additions but they don't stick well to the paint.) I decided I was wasting space and should put up something else. I whipped up some displays to illustrate the habitats we were talking about AND display the vocabulary. One display represents the wetlands- I painted it on butcher paper with some collage elements and labels and plastered the back with small loops of packing tape. I also sealed the edges with even more tape. My aquatic habitat was made in a similar way only taped over a closet door instead of to the wall. I'm not committing to making such a big display for each new lesson, but I do plan to use the space to display materials relating to what is currently being studied. Maybe in coming years I'll be able to get a big bulletin board for that wall so I don't waste rolls upon rolls of tape.

Most states have an official state fish, but Kansas doesn't for some reason. I'm not sure why since we have a bird, mammal, reptile, amphibian, and insect. Our unofficial state fish is the Channel Catfish. I've grown up fishing and feel like I know a fair amount about Kansas fish. I did learn quite a bit about channel cat while doing some research for this lesson. For example, their "whiskers" are really called barbels, and they have 8 of them! I also learned more about zebra mussels, an invasive species. I had heard people talk about them and seen educational flyers, but I didn't realize how much of an impact they are having. Next year, with more experience with this program, I'll be able to do a better job.

The 4th-6th grade students still have another week to work on their artwork during recess (lots have been taking me up on that offer) before it's due back to me. The 1st-3rd grade students are still working on them in class. I can't wait to share the finished artwork!

For more information...
Jr. Duck Stamp Program
http://www.fws.gov/juniorduck/
State Fish Art Contest
http://www.wildlifeforever.org/contest