Unit 0

Students will be introduced to the basics of art and computer science, explore different personal and professional opportunities in the arts and computer science fields, and learn how to talk about and respond to works of art and computational artifacts.

skill builders

Below are Skill Builders, short practice activities that students can complete individually or with a partner. The Skill Builders are connected to each assignment and reinforce essential Art and Computer Science concepts and ideas and should be included in student sketchbooks wherever possible.

Find a mural or other work of art in your neighborhood*.

Using any appropriate tools, create a presentation about the artwork:

• Include an image of the artwork

• What is the purpose of the artwork?

• What thoughts or feelings does this artwork evoke?

• What does the artwork remind you of?

• What questions do you have about the artwork?

For each questions try to cite evidence from the artwork, its setting, or information that you have researched.

*While you are encouraged to visit one of SF's many murals in person, if you are unable to feel free to use one of the images from the website above.

Why Art?

Why Create Art?

Explore some of the reasons why the people of your culture(s) create art.

Culture: the languages, customs, beliefs, rules, arts, knowledge, and collective identities and memories developed by members of all social groups that make their social environments meaningful

Examine the art of your culture(s).

Although race and culture can be closely linked, culture is an expansive idea that encompasses many different aspects of one's environment, upbringing, family, friendships, and experiences.

Art is not limited to physical works such as paintings or sculptures. Music, songs, dance, poetry, and storytelling are all examples of art created by different cultures.

Using any appropriate tools, create a presentation about the art of your culture(s):

• What types of art do the people of your culture(s) create?

• Why do they create this art? What is its purpose? Why is it important?

• Include examples (image, audio, video) of the art of your culture

Alternatively, students may also explore the arts of other cultures that interest them.

Impacts of computing

Ethical Dilemmas in Computer Science

Explore some ethical issues in Computer Science.

You may refer to your own knowledge and experience as well researching some current ethical topics in Computer Science.

Using any appropriate tools, create a presentation about an ethical issue in Computer Science:

• Include a description of the ethical issue

• Explain who may be harmed by this issue

• Explore one or more possible solutions this ethical issue

• Cite your sources of information

Some possible topics to explore include copyright, piracy, digital plagiarism, cybersecurity, the digital divide, big data, artificial intelligence (AI), misinformation/disinformation, surveillance technology.

Ethics in Computer Science Resources:

Ethics: a set of moral principles that govern the behavior of an individual or group of people

Computer Ethics: the application of moral principles to the use of computers and the Internet

• ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct

• The ethics of computer science: this researcher has a controversial proposal

• Ethics, computing, and AI: Perspectives from MIT

Arts & CS Career Explorations

Explore the life and careers of persons in the Computer Science/STEM field from a variety of different cultural backgrounds.

Explore the life and careers of persons in the Visual Arts field from a variety of different cultural backgrounds.

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Elements of Art

Review the Elements of Art

Line: Create a portrait of self-portrait in your sketchbook using any type of line or multiple types of lines. How might different lines be used to convey mood, meaning, or feeling in your portrait?

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Color: Create a color wheel in your sketchbook that shows the Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary colors and their relationships to each other. Also, create examples of Monochromatic, Analogous, Warm, and Cool color schemes.

Value:

• Option 1: Take a series of photographs (10-15) with a theme. The theme might be your family, your friends, your passion, your hobby, your neighborhood, your community, or anything else that has meaning to you. Use any editing tools to convert the photos to black and white. Pay close attention to the value range of each image. Compare the black and white images to the original color images. What changes do you notice in mood, meaning or feeling between the color and black and white images? Which do you prefer? Why might a photographer choose black and white over color or vice-versa?

• Option 2: Research a contemporary (someone still alive and working) black and white photographer. Choose a few images that are interesting, have meaning to you, and/or are visually compelling. Describe why you chose these images. How does the photographer use value? How does their use of value create mood, meaning, or feeling?

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Shape: Using any appropriate drawing tools create a still life of 4-6 objects. Any objects can be used for a still life but fresh fruit works particularly well. Render the shapes of the still life objects in any manner desired. Use all organic shapes, all geometric shapes, or a combination. Use as much or as little detail as desired, make the shapes representative or abstract, but the objects should still be recognizable.

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Form:

• Option 1: Using any appropriate drawing tools practice making some basic Shapes into Forms. Make a square into a cube, make a circle into sphere, make a triangle into cone or pyramid. Use Value to help indicate Form.

• Option 2: Find some examples of public art in your neighborhood that use real or implied Form. Describe the artwork. Describe how the artist uses Form and how the viewer experiences the sense of Form. Include an image of your chosen artwork, if possible.

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Space: Describe an idea for a site-specific work of art in your neighborhood or community. Your idea can be 2D or 3D. Describe the physical environment of your chosen site. What feelings, mood, or meaning does this site evoke for you or your community? Describe how your idea will employ positive and negative space. How might your idea take advantage of the unique features of your chosen site? What will your idea say about the space that it occupies? How would you want people to view, interact, and/or experience your site-specific work of art? If possible, include an image of your chosen location (Google Maps, et al, will suffice).

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Texture: Using any appropriate tools make some texture rubbings of various objects in your immediate area. Textures can be found on wood, concrete, plastic, metal, leaves, trees, and other organic material. Almost any kind of paper and drawing tools can be used. Pencil, charcoal sticks, crayons, and pastels work especially well. You can also use a variety of cutting tools such as scissors, and hole punchers to create your own kinds of real or implied textures.

principles of design

Review the Principles of Design

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Proportion:

• Option 1: Individually or with a partner, use any digital camera take a series of photos that demonstrate forced perspective and/or tilt shift* to create a sense of space and dimension in a 2D photograph. Forced perspective and tilt shift are example of exaggerated Proportion.

• Option 2: Practice drawing a human eye, hands, or face. Use a mirror, photographic images, instructional videos, or any other resources that will help you draw an object in its correct Proportion.

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Emphasis: Draw some Zentangles and add a bit of color to emphasize a particular Shape, Form, or Pattern. There are many Zentangle tutorials and pattern ideas available online. Try to create your own unique Zentangle. Look for ideas all around you!

Contrast: Use different types of Contrast in your Zentangles to create Emphasis. Color is an easy way to get started. Contrasting Proportion and Texture can also be visually compelling.

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Pattern:

• Option 1: Take one of your Zentangle designs and repeat it in a grid of 8-12 squares. Arrange the grid in whichever manner is aesthetically pleasing to you.

• Option 2: Many cultures use pattern in their art. Research the art of your culture or another culture that interests you. Use any appropriate tools (drawing, cut paper, digital drawing) to create a pattern composition based on the art of the culture that you researched.

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Movement: Choose a work of art that interests you. It could be a public mural or sculpture, a painting or drawing, a photograph, a piece of ceramic ware. The work should be relatively static (not a video or animation). Examine the image intently. Take your time and try to take in the whole image as well as its individual parts. Describe the path that your eyes take when viewing the artwork. What do you notice first? Where do your eyes go next? Where do you end up? Are there parts of the artwork that your eyes keep returning to? Are you able to complete a path through the entire artwork? Or do you get stuck in some places? Is that a good thing or a bad thing, in your opinion? Why or why not?

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Rhythm: In music, Rhythm is made up of different elements such as accent, metre, and tempo (the beat). When combined these elements can create an identifiable Pattern over time. It is this combination of a recognizable Pattern within a given time frame that can be summed up as Rhythm. Similarly, in art Rhythm is created by the repetition of art elements such as Line, Shape, or Color. This repetition creates a sense of vibration or motion in an artwork.
Choose a favorite song or musical piece. Listen to it intently. Try to visualize the beat (tempo). If you were to draw an individual beat what would it look like? Would it be a line? A circle? An organic Shape? A geometric Form? What would a group of those beats (metre) look like together? Think about the accents of the song. How might you visualize those brief highs and lows? What might the Space between the accents and beats look like? Which colors might you use to represent the accents, beats, and overall Rhythm?
Focus on a smaller section of the song or musical piece--perhaps a single verse or chorus or just 30 seconds. Use any appropriate drawing tools (pencil, color pencil, markers, paint, digital drawing software, etc.) to create a visualization of the Rhythm of your chosen song/musical piece. Your viewer should get a sense of the vibration of the instruments or the motion of the accents and/or beats.

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Unity/Harmony: Unity/Harmony is the arrangement of Elements and Principles in an artwork to create a feeling of completeness.

Unity/Harmony can be a difficult concept to identify. Often it is a feeling that one can sense is either present or missing in an artwork.

Using a design chart can help a viewer ask the right questions as to whether an artwork has a sense of Unity/Harmony.

Choose a work of art to critique. The artwork can be in any media. Since you will be critiquing this artwork do not spend too much time trying to find the "right" one.

The design chart below displays the Elements and Principles of art in a grid:

• Identify the Elements present in your chosen artwork

• Think of each intersection of an Element and Principles as a design question:

  • e.g., Does this artwork use Color to create Emphasis? Is the use of Color Balanced in a pleasing way? Does the use of Color create a Pattern or sense of Movement or Rhythm?

• Not all Elements or Principles will apply to your chosen artwork nor will each intersection of the Elements and Principles

• Use your experience and judgment to determine which Elements/Principles intersections apply, which design questions those intersection create, and how to answer those design questions

• Type your design questions/answers within the chart intersection or type/write them in a separate document

  • Remember to cite specific examples from the artwork in your questions/answers

The Language of Computer Science

Computational Thinking

An Infographic is a visual image such as a chart or diagram used to represent information or data.

Use Computational Thinking Strategies (Abstraction, Decomposition, Pattern Recognition, Algorithm) to create an Infographic about a topic of your choosing. Your Infographic might be a step-by-step process, or a visual representation of data, or information about a person, place, or thing. How might you represent your topic so people of all cultures, languages, and backgrounds can understand your idea? For inspiration read about the history of Olympic Pictograms.
Brainstorm some ideas individually or with a partner. Apply the Computational Thinking Strategies to each idea to see which will work best.
Use any appropriate drawing tools (pencil, color pencil, markers, paint, digital drawing software, etc.) to create your Infographic. Share your Infographic with a classmate or group of classmates to see if they can explain its purpose.

Responding to Art

Choose a work of art that appeals to you. It may be a public mural or sculpture in your neighborhood, an artwork in a museum, a drawing by your friend. Any artistic representation can be used!

Individually or with a partner, respond to the work of art using the 4 steps of the critique process: Description, Analysis, Interpretation, Evaluation. Use one or all of the steps. If working with a partner, come to a consensus for each of the steps. For each step, cite evidence from the artwork to back up your claims.

Responding to computational artifacts

Conduct a code review using the 4 cornerstones of Computational Thinking.

• Decomposition:

  • Focus on one small part of the computational artifact at a time (line-by-line) to search for bugs

• Pattern Recognition:

  • Which words, symbols, and/or numbers are repeated in the computational artifact?

  • Which words, symbols, and/or numbers do you recognize from other contexts?

  • What might these repeated items tell a reader about the function and purpose of computational artifact?

• Abstraction:

  • What might be the overall purpose of the computational artifact?

• Algorithm:

  • Is the syntax, organization, and flow of the computational artifact easy to follow and understand?