Big Idea: Looking Closely

To get the students in the mindset of "Looking Closely," they participated in a scavenger hunt in which they had to find patterns in nature. We took note of the different vantage points we could achieve by looking with our eyes, our phones, and a macro photography lens. They used this inspiration to complete their first art piece, a tiny painting. 

Preparing our Senses

We began our program by reading a poem together by CA Conrad titled "For the Feral Splendor That Remains." The poem was written using what Conrad calls their (Soma)tic Poetry Ritual: "I wrote each poem after lying on the ground and flooding my body with field recordings of recently extinct animals—like the Dusky Seaside Sparrow. I prepared to cope with depression from this experience but was instead filled with euphoria each time I performed the ritual."

From the get go, our students were eager to express their feelings and opinions about a range of things happening in the world -- from climate change and ethical shopping to social media and celebrity drama. We discussed the parts of the poem that stood out to them, and made free associations. Afterwards, we decided we should all try chewing parsley and cilantro together to see if we agreed with how the poem described the experience!

Building a sense of Place

Our learning space was in the beautiful garden at Waters. Our students were excited to be spending time outdoors and in the Waters Garden. The students enjoyed making it their own using foam tiles to create different rooms and forts each day. Many individual and community spaces were created. It was fun to watch them work together to change up the space each day depending on the nature of our activities.

Engaging Student Voice

Student voice was very important element of our program. Often we would give them a list of options based on our supplies, and the students would vote for what the project would be. 

One of the days, they chose to focus on creating with air-dry clay. One group of students decided to work together to create a play space for our little bug friends that visited us daily.

We spent several sessions learning how to weave using looms we made from recycled cardboard. Students enjoyed the slow and contemplative nature of weaving, and working within the grid structure to create an image. 

The students decided that they would like to revisit painting during the second to last week of camp. Some decided to paint the image they had on their smaller canvas on a larger scale, and some wanted to try something new inspired by the plants around them. 

Our final project was cyanotype sun printing using items that we collected and pressed during our garden explorations. It was an exciting three-part process. We started with paper and then moved onto making t-shirts!
The transformations were fun to observe.