An image sparks deeper inquiry into the physiology of silkworms, the architecture of shapes located in space, biomimicry and technology. Individuals explore the intersection of disciplines and wonder about next steps.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Assessment, Lesson Plan, Teaching/Learning Strategy
This video segment from New York Voices features Chinese American architect Maya Lin.
Material Type: Lecture
The visual narratives and abstractions of this preeminent African American artist explore the places where he lived and worked: the rural South, Pittsburgh, Harlem, and the Caribbean. Bearden's central themes: religion, jazz and blues, history, literature, and the realities of black life he endured throughout his remarkable career in watercolors, oils, and especially collages and photomontages from the 1940s through the 1980s.
Material Type: Diagram/Illustration, Reading, Teaching/Learning Strategy, Textbook
Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #21, 1978, gelatin silver print, 7.5 x 9.5 inches or 19.1 x 24.1 cm (MoMA) Speakers: Dr. Shana Gallagher-Lindsay, Dr. Beth Harris. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Material Type: Lesson
Students will explore contemporary artist John Baldessari's mixed-media work of art inspired by a 16th-century drawing of a beetle. After writing a story about a bug's journey, each student will create a mixed-media representation of a bug that is inspired by the contemporary artist's work.
Material Type: Diagram/Illustration, Lesson Plan
All art is political in the sense that all art takes place in the public arena and engages with an already existing ideology. Chinese artist, Ai Weiwei, offers an important contemporary example. The news that Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has been detained by authorities has prompted significant concern. Ai Weiwei has ben arrested by the Chinese authorities.
Material Type: Diagram/Illustration, Lecture
In this video from Wide Angle, an Afro-Brazilian model discusses the predominance of whites in the Brazilian advertising industry.
Material Type: Lecture
In this video segment from Wide Angle, learn about the fence that is part of the border security system between Botswana and Zimbabwe.
Material Type: Lecture
American Memory provides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience. It is a digital record of American history and creativity. These materials, from the collections of the Library of Congress and other institutions, chronicle historical events, people, places, and ideas that continue to shape America, serving the public as a resource for education and lifelong learning.
Material Type: Diagram/Illustration, Lesson Plan, Primary Source, Reading, Teaching/Learning Strategy
Advanced-level students will write narratives from the perspective of slaves depicted in rare photographs, and then create a print depicting a moment from the narratives.
Material Type: Diagram/Illustration, Lesson Plan
This is the first lesson in a sequential unit. Students make connections between their own feelings about caring for something and similar feelings that are expressed in works of art
Material Type: Diagram/Illustration, Lesson Plan
This video segment, adapted fromThinking Big, Building Small, demonstrates each part of the engineering design process, which is fundamental to any successful project. Though it does this in the context of building skyscrapers, the process is applicable to any sort of project, including constructing schools, building bridges, and even manufacturing sneakers. Students will recognize the value of going through its steps sequentially when constructing scale models. Recommended for: Grades 3-12
Material Type: Activity/Lab
Featuring slow-motion footage of insects in flight, this video adapted from NOVA explores the engineering challenge of designing a robotic aerial vehicle that flies like a bug.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
This activity focuses on getting the students to think about disabilities and how they can make some aspects of life more difficult. The students are asked to pick a disability and design a new kind of sport for it.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
NEXT.cc is an eco web that develops ethical imagination and environmental stewardship. NEXT.cc introduces what design is, what design does, and why design is important. It offers activities across nine scales – nano, pattern, object, space, architecture, neighborhood, urban, region, and world. NEXT.cc's journeys introduce activities online, in the classroom, in the community and globally. NEXT.cc journeys and activities are supported with links to museums, institutions and contemporary practices. The eco web network of journeys provides a solid foundation for newly established NAAEE North American Association of Environmental Education standards with place based design activities that address the five goals of environmental education: Awareness, Knowledge, Attitudes and Environmental Ethic, Citizen Action Skills, and Citizen Action Experiences. NEXT.cc is based on Wisconsin Art and Design Standards and Common Core State Standards. NEXT.cc plans to reach young people, their teachers and their families with meaningful learning experiences that create positive influence on lives and outcomes.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Assessment, Game, Interactive, Lesson Plan, Unit of Study
This video segment adapted from A Science Odyssey looks at the invention of nylon.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
Learn about how wild parakeets have adapted to city life in this WILD TV video segment.
Material Type: Lecture
Artists are often particularly keen observers and precise recorders of the physical conditions of the natural world. As a result, paintings can be good resources for learning about ecology. Teachers can use this lesson to examine with students the interrelationship of geography, natural resources, and climate and their effects on daily life. It also addresses the roles students can take in caring for the environment. Students will look at paintings that represent cool temperate, warm temperate, and tropical climates. In this lesson students will: Identify natural resources found in particular geographic areas; Discuss ways in which climate, natural resources, and geography affect daily life; Apply critical-thinking skills to consider the various choices artists have made in their representations of the natural world; Make personal connections to the theme by discussing ways they can be environmental stewards; Identify natural resources found in particular geographic areas; Discuss ways in which climate, natural resources, and geography affect daily life; Apply critical-thinking skills to consider the various choices artists have made in their representations of the natural world; Make personal connections to the theme by discussing ways they can be environmental stewards.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Assessment, Diagram/Illustration, Lesson Plan
The lessons in this issue of Smithsonian in Your Classroom introduce the work of botanists and botanical illustrators, specifically their race to make records of endangered plant species around the world. “Very little of the world’s flora has been fully studied,” says one Smithsonian botanist, “and time is running out.” In the first lesson, students gets to know six endangered plants. They examine illustrations, photographs, and dried specimens of the plants as they consider this question: If a scientist can take a picture of a plant, are there advantages in having an illustration? They go on to consider some of the big questions that botanists themselves must ask: Which of these species are most in need of conservation efforts? Are any of these plants more worth saving than others?In the second lesson, the students try their own hands at botanical illustration, following the methods of a Smithsonian staff illustrator. All that is required for the lesson are pencils, markers, tracing paper, and access to a photocopier.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Diagram/Illustration, Lecture, Lesson Plan, Reading, Unit of Study
"Opening the World through Journaling: Integrating Art, Science, and Language Arts" teaches children to become keen observers of the natural world by drawing and writing about the plants and animals in situ. In a set of nested exercises, students use games to gain confidence in drawing and writing as a way to gather information. Later, they employ these skills to put together a field guide, make treasure maps, and to write short stories and poems.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
