"Earth From Above" for young readers by Yann Arthus-Bertrand

This book is a great resource for teaching with Google Earth. Filled with images taken from a helicopter around the world, children can see the shapes and patterns you wouldn't see on the earth. The photos are a much closer look than what you can see from Google Earth, like bright colored vats of dye in Morocco and a mangrove forest witha heart shape in New Cledonia.
"Earth From Above" for young readers by Yann Arthus-Bertrand(2001)

Paper Quilling Art Project

Title: Multicultural Lesson “Cock-a-doodle-doo, Kuku Ryku” from Poland
or Quilling Insects and their environment
Grades: 1-4
History/Background:
Polish decorative arts use of cut paper is called wycinanki (vee-chee-nahn-kee). The spirit of Poland’s enthusiasm for life is expressed in strong ethic pride and respect for family traditions. One of the most popular themes in wycinanki is the crowing rooster. The roster symbolizes vitalility, productivity and renewal. A healthy rooster is a blessing. The egg is a symbol of rebirth all over the world.

Standards: 9.1 Arts and Humanities, Production of Visual Arts
9.2 Historical and Cultural Contexts
8.4 World History

Goal: To create a creature, whether a rooster or bug, out of paper by cutting,
gluing, and quilling paper.

Objectives: 1. Students will create a completed paper creature.
2. Students will learn how to quill paper into scrolls.
3. Students will recognize that the rooster is popular in
Polish wycinanki.
4. Students will use template to make rooster or creature, make and glue at least 10 quills, decorate head, feet and base.

Resource materials/Visual Aids: Photos of roosters, teaching board, my exemplar

Supplies/Materials:1.Template of rooster
2. Railroad paper of many colors
3. Scissors
4. Elmer’s Glue
5. Smock/apron
6. Origami paper
7. Toothpicks/or unsharpened pencils

Teacher Preparation: Create teaching boards, cut rooster template out of oak tag before class, cut Origami paper into ½ inch long strips with paper cutter

Teaching Instruction: Polish decorative arts use of cut paper is called wycinanki (vee-chee-nahn-kee). Repeat after me “vee-chee-nahn-kee”. The polish tradition of wycinanki is symmetrical design. The spirit of Poland’s enthusiasm for live is expressed in strong ethic pride and respect for family traditions. One of the most popular themes in wycinanki is the crowing rooster. He doesn’t say “cock-a-doodle-doo” but “kuku ryku” in polish. The rooster crows every morning to the sun to mark a new day. The roster symbolizes vitality, productivity and renewal. A healthy rooster is a blessing. The egg is a symbol of rebirth all over the world. Did you know the polka dot originates from the Polish polka dance costumes?
We are going to make out own roosters out of paper by rolling paper into paper scroll quills. Don’t they look like feathers?

Directions: DAY 1-
1. Use a template to trace the shape of the rooster and base on the heavy stock paper, Railroad paper.******Make a mark where the cut line is.
2. Cut out the rooster and the base with scissors.
3.Put name on both the rooster and the base in small print on the bottom edge in pencil.
4. Roll origami paper strips provided on the toothpick, one piece of paper at a time. Create at least 10 in different colors.
5. Put Elmer’s glue in the size of a pea on the rooster’s tail end and place one quill per pea size of glue.

DAY 2-
1. Decorate the head, chest and feet of the rooster using the paper scraps provided.**** Remember not to cover the cut mark.
2. Make a cut into the base strip, half the width of the base in the middle.
3. Make a cut into the bottom of your rooster ½ inch deep- refer to the make you made when you traces the rooster.
4. If your rooster is dry, put the base on the rooster. Voila!!!! Kuku-ryku or cook-a-doodle-doo!!!!

Extension: Cut eggs, birds or feather out of origami paper. Create a design on a postcard.

Critique/Evaluation: Criteria: Did the student follow the directions, have at least 10 quills, have a base with their name? Did they try to say the polish word wycinanki?

See attached Rubric

Time Budget: 2 class periods of 45 minutes each

Vocabulary: Wycinanki (vee-chee-nahn-kee) - Polish decorative arts use of cut paper, which is symmetrical.

Symmetrical- a design that is balanced and has the same elements on each side

Safety concerns: review scissor safety

Bibliography/References: Susan Rodriguez’s Culture Smart book,
website “www.google.com, images, Wycinanki as search word

how to make a water filter

My Introduction

My name is Christina Roberts and I am a graduate student in the Art Education department at University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA. I am currently working in a middle school as Personal Care Assistant to a student with Autism. Along with teaching life skills, I sneak in art appreciation and the love of nature.The school has student run recycling program that I am constantly reminding students the parameters of no staples or plastic in the BLUE bin. They should be GREEN.

Personally, I love plants. As spring approaches, I stroll my gardens while drinking my morning coffee if time allows. Small buds are growing and opening up on the lilac tree that I transplanted from my great-grandmother’s yard seven years ago. I read that it would take this long of it to bloom- this is the year!!! Most of my plants have been given to me my friends and neighbors who also have a passion for rooted life. I enjoy the connection of gift, friendship, and appreciation of nature.

Each year I plan a new garden or at least to enlarge one. My goal is is have the smallest lawn possible: the hum of the lawn mower is not that pleasing. Transplanting plants to better conditions or combinations is every after. Spreading seeds in the fall and spring and watching the magic will never ease to embrace me. In a world that can be fast and loud. I find peace in knowing my garden will be there of me even in the middle of the night. I have been known to pull weeds with a head lamplight. Having a compost pile, you are known as the best worm farmer for our fishing friends.

My favorite bloom is the red China Boy poppy with a black interior. The seed heads are beautifully designed with a hard protective shell and delicately scalloped edges. Euphorbia is my other favorite which is an evergreen ground cover with chartreuse flowers.

Slowing down to really look at nature is something I wish to teach all of my students to do. Whether they draw or grow a garden, it is a world of it’s own to cherish.

Terry Tempest Williams

Terry Tempest Williams, born in 1955, is an American writer and environmentalist who focus is on the deserts of the American West. Besides being in the Ecology Hall of Fame, she is an accomplished author of several books (Pieces of White Shell, An Unspoken Hunger, Leap, Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert, and The Open Space of Democracy ). Williams writings, besides personal and educational, are reflective of current issues in our environment. Her passion to protect the desert and its wildlife is transcended to people who don’t necessarily think about the environment. Her article in Sports Illustrated relates to fans of wildlife, on the court and off. After reading some of her work, I have slowed myself down to appreciate and really look at the details as well as the big picture of the world around us. Williams writes of issues that would keep most conscientious people up at night. Without preservation of the earth and its inhabitants, our future is bleak. Williams brings hope and understanding to the health our future as well as the earth’s. Her essay, The Earth Stares Back, is accompanied with the aerial photography of Emmet Gowin. Without reading the essay, one would think some of the images are naturally evolved by time and weather. The erosion is not all natural and the wildlife is declining because of the drastic change in conditions(Gowin, 2002). Huge mining sites and test craters are scars in the Earth(Gowin, 2002). Together Williams and Gowin create a powerful message to encourage people to be responsible for their actions. Williams(2002) writes ”Emmet Gowin has made exposures of the Earth, a changed earth, an Earth we may not recognize because our eyes have been locked on the horizon. We live at eye level, which is its own conceit, a point of view that supports what we believe to be true- that the Earth is here simply to support us. We survey the land around us and dream of the ways it can serve us” (p.126).



Emmett Gowin, Copper Ore Tailing, Arizona 1988, split toned gelatin silver print



References:

Moonwater, R. (2007). www.coyoteclan.com. Retrieved March 30, 2007, from http://www.coyoteclan.com/index.html

Williams, T. (2002). The earth stares back. In Gowin, E. (Ed.), Changing the earth (pp. 125-131). New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press.

Williams, T. (2003). Big game, this naturalist's binoculars moved from deer to hawks to karl malone [Electronic version].Sports Illustrated, 10. Retrieved March 30,2007, from http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/magazine/features/si50/states/utah/essay/

Williams, T. (2004a).Ground truthing [Electronic version]. Orion Magazine, 4(2). Retrieved March 30, 2007, from http://www.oriononline.org/pages/om/04-3om/TempestWilliams.html

Williams, T. (2004b) Engagement [Electronic version] Orion Magazine, 4(3). Retrieved April 4, 2007, from http://www.oriononline.org/pages/om/04-4om/TempestWilliams.html