Artist/Researcher Partners 2022-2023

Luz Santellano & Niema Qureshi

Big Idea

Cosmic Wonder

Inquiry Question

How can exploring stars and the night sky from a personal, cultural, and societal lens help students to make a connection to the vast cosmos?

Describe Your Project

Students applied their knowledge of stars and the night sky to create artwork that told personal stories about their connection to the cosmos. The unit was divided into three lessons that built on each other. Using everyday materials such as paper, string, and tape, students began by creating their own personal constellation. This was followed by a lesson which explores indigenous stories and contemporary art about the night sky. Students used this new knowledge to create a visual representation of a constellation with an alternative narrative - rather than the traditional Greek perspective - that lights up by using paper circuitry. For the final project, students combined their knowledge and creative skills from the previous lessons to work collaboratively. They applied their paper circuitry knowledge to illuminate symbols that represent their hopes for the future. Our intention was to have students create a large constellation and find visible hidden connections related to the theme of climate change (specifically light pollution) but we ran out of time. The project ended with a culminating event that showcased the students’ artwork. Students from other classes, the principal, assistant principal, Laura Kelly (the art teacher) and other school members attended the event. 

What references or influences did you draw from when creating your project? What changed this year from past CAPE projects?

We knew that by the time we would start our collaboration students would have a fairly good understanding of constellations from a science lens so we wanted to explore the topic from a personal and cultural lens. We began by looking at how contemporary art exhibitions explored the concept of constellations. An exhibition titled Constellations at Tate Liverpool ("the display draws on Walter Benjamin's and Theodor Adorno's use of the constellation as a spatial, temporal and perceptual concept, which provides a model for organizing disparate information to make visible hidden connections") brought together artwork from various time periods but as works were arranged around a trigger artwork new connections emerged. We were interested in investigating how our integration could use a trigger point to "make visible hidden connections". 

Our first lesson was inspired by the Tate gallery educational resources where students were asked to create personal constellations. We extended the Tate's activity by having students connect their personal constellations with one another using yarn to find hidden or new connections.

Students create personal constellations using mind maps 

Students use shapes, colors and lines to visually represent their personal constellation 

Students use black yarn to connect their individual constellations with one another to find hidden connections. 

More examples of students finding hidden connections. 


Choose 1 academic learning standard and 1 arts learning standard. Describe how it was incorporated into your project.


We used the following Visual Arts Standard to encourage students to revise and reflect on their process. For example, during the second lesson students illustrated narratives about their personal or cultural connections to constellations and then embedded these images with paper circuitry. Many students had to adapt their design so that their electronic circuit would light up in exactly the location that they wanted it to or they had to revise their illustration so their circuit could work. By combining these disparate materials together students were experimenting and developing new art-making skills. 

Students created their own stories about constellations which they illustrated

Students used paper circuitry to add a light to their illustration which highlighted an important aspect of their story. 

Describe how inquiry was introduced to your students. What did you find out about your inquiry through your engagement with materials?

We divided our unit into three lessons so students could investigate different sub-themes and materials to explore the vast topic of constellations. Our initial lesson asked students to create personal constellations . The aim of this lesson was to encourage students to make connections with the term "constellation" but broaden their understanding beyond what they had learned in their science class. 


The other two lessons incorporated paper circuitry and LEDs, so students could actually light up their work. Many of the students were really engaged when we introduced this new technique, but due to the constraints of these microelectronic materials, it was harder for the students to experiment and explore. As some students gained more confidence using the copper tape, they challenged themselves to add more than one LED light, and they also found interesting ways of placing the copper tape in different shapes (outside of the rectangle, simple circuit form they learned) that worked with their complex artwork on light pollution. 


So although we had not expected our first lesson to become the central focus of our unit, in my mind, it ended up being more successful. Students made interesting connections with the materials and what they were visually trying to express. For example, one student used foam circles of different sizes stacked on top of each other to represent how many years they had been involved in an activity they were passionate about. Other students used ribbons and yarns of various thickness to represent how important a connection was to them. These everyday materials gave students the freedom to develop their own visual language and make connections to what they had been learning in science about constellations. 


It was wonderful to see how students found new or unseen connections with one another when they shared their personal constellations with each other. Using black yarn, they expanded their constellations to create a larger group constellations. 

Students use circles to represent the number of years.

Students use yarn and ribbon to represent the importance of particular connections. 

Students compare their artwork with their mind map. 

What did you learn about how your students learn this year? What did you learn about how you teach?

Reflecting back on our project I think we tried to include a lot in the time frame that we had. However, we could see how using certain materials resonated more with some students rather than others and that the pace of the different lessons helped to keep students really engaged. I think most students were able to make overarching connections and could follow the thread that linked these three lessons together. 

Although I do think the final 2 lessons didn't offer students as many opportunities to take risks and find their own sense of inquiry, perhaps next year we can narrow down the focus and provide opportunities for students to go deeper so they can create work that has more personal significance to them. 

I learned that students are in desperate need of more opportunities to express themselves creatively. Seeing them through the art lens pushed me to consider how art does not have to be separate from science, rather they can both work jointly to anchor students' learning while also allowing them to make personal connections and make decisions freely. This CAPE Unit made our Patterns of Earth and Sky Unit come to life.

I learned that I have so much to learn about teaching. I gained so much from collaborating with Niema Qureshi. Niema expanded my own learning, such as using new materials, making and troubleshooting issues with paper circuits and LEDs, and learning how to integrate research into the classroom to help students gain inspiration fo their project.