PCB's (but not the fun kind)

Environmental Science and Pottery 1&2 teamed up to teach our students what PCB’s are, why we should care about them, and how to create a platform for others to learn about them.

Our challenging question for this project was “How do we educate the public about the safety of fish in Lake Hartwell?” Since we are a lake town and most of our students enjoy the lake in some way, we decided a project like this would create some authentic curiosity. The impact of manufacturing on our environment hits home with this project since it directly impacts the fish in our lake, in which these students boat, swim, and go fishing. The knowledge that this pollution has changed their environment, in their town, has made this problem personal and created a sustainability in its inquiry.

Students began this project by reading articles published throughout the last 60 years about the origins of PCB’s in our area and the effects of them on our local ecosystems. Through this research, they will discover that the fish are changing, and in fact still have levels of PCB’s in them, 60 years after the beginning of the chemical leaching into the lake. Further research in their groups will allow them to discover the health issues due to PCB’s and suggested health limitations due to them. Working in their groups, they’ll storyboard, participate in critiques with feedback, and then film videos explaining their findings to the public. At then end of the project, the class will watch the videos and vote on the top five, creating QR codes for displaying fish sculptures made by pottery class.

Pottery students will learn about PCB’s as well, and will research design elements that grab attention so the QR codes will be discovered by the student population in the school library. Throughout their project, they’ll be combining the different hand building techniques and using additive sculptures to make a fish sculpture. They’ll record their ideas in their sketchbooks along with a sketch, creating actual vs applied textures, and glazing. Students will go through both teacher and peer critiques to ensure that the sculpture is physically possible, won’t lose fins while drying, etc. During the building process, students will assist each other (along with the teacher) in critiques, repairs, etc., to create a fish sculpture that will draw viewers to the QR code. After drying, firing, glazing, and firing again, fish sculptures will be labeled with the QR codes and placed in the media center for the student body to view.

Students met to create a video explaining both of their subjects to each other. Formative assessments consist of critiques, teacher observations, sketches/storyboards. Summative evaluations consist of rubrics for videos and sculptures.