TEACHER: So let's just take a minute to look at this basin.
Today in class I engaged my students in a discussion centered on the analysis of
an oval basin. Art really gets them thinking, it gets them questioning and
when they're creating art, then they're having to synthesize the facts, and
through that exploration we can delve deeper and deeper into the science
standards, and what is a sustainable, balanced ecosystem.
TEACHER: What do you see here?
STUDENT: It's a plate that someone decorated. I think that they were thinking of animals.
The learning objective is that students make claims about the health of an
ecosystem based on observation of an art piece, an oval basin created in the 16th
century by Bernard Polizzi. It's actually live casted
so the objects on it were made from molds of actual animals.
So it's always intriguing to the students. Just by collecting in one place
you can actually recreate a habitat. We use that to be able to discuss
sustainability and balance within an ecosystem, and balance artistically if
we're looking at the placement of the different specimens.
TEACHER: Can anyone give me a definition of the word balance?...Daniel
STUDENT: The same one two sides.
STUDENT: Don't eat too much of something or not to little of something.
STUDENT: Also you can do your homework and you can do your classwork but you need to
do both the same.
Balance is a difficult concept for the students and it's also subjective
artistically but in talking about ecosystems, you talk about that delicate
balance that we are part of.
and in that NGSS standard (the life science standards that talks about
ecosystems)
it mentions web of life. How we as humans are part of that web of life.
If you can discuss the concept of balance in as many different ways as possible,
they can really start understanding that word in different ways.
TEACHER: The artist would actually go and collect these live specimens and he made molds
from the actual bodies of the animals. STUDENT: That's cool
There are so many opportunities to use art in whatever you're teaching and
there's so much available to you online.
I was able to download high-resolution images through the Getty website.
There is an extensive database of different works of art just at your fingertips.
TEACHER: So look at these through the eyes of an ecosystem and we
might identify what are the producers?
what's after producer?
STUDENTS: Primary consumer... secondary consumer... tertiary consumer.
TEACHER: We also have the decomposers.
In class we've done different informative readings on biodiversity and elements of
an ecosystem. All of those have helped them develop the background about how
there's this web of factors that all depend on one another.
TEACHER: If all these features come from the same habitat, what is the habitat?
STUDENT: The habitat would be near the water
TEACHER: Do we think it's freshwater or do we think it's salt water?
STUDENT: The animal that tells us that this would be a freshwater habitat is the frog because
I know that frogs don't really live near salt water.
TEACHER: So they tend to be a freshwater animal.
Based on some of the animals and organisms that they saw we classified them.
The important part was that they are trying to analyze the interactions of
the species and some of them they didn't recognize and that's okay.
It's more about understanding how the species interact rather than exactly
which species they are.
TEACHER: Does anyone know what else lizards might eat?
STUDENT: Lizards might eat a snail.
TEACHER: So that would make it a secondary consumer.
STUDENT: I think a snail can be a decomposer.
After we classify the different flora and fauna on the basin,
I asked the students is this a balanced ecosystem? or, also artistically, is this
balanced as a piece of art?
They've already had instruction on the elements of art, they are very fluent in
many of the different words we use to describe art. The shadow, the line, the
color. The students point out the exact details that are evidence for their claim.
TEACHER: Looking at this as a piece of art, would you say that it is balanced or imbalanced?
STUDENT: It doesn't look balanced. The snake in the middle doesn't match.
TEACHER: So you're saying this snake in the middle makes it imbalanced?
STUDENT: Yes
TEACHER: Does anyone disagree?
STUDENT: I think this piece of art is balanced. The crayfish, they're both on different sides and the leaves are spread out everywhere.
TEACHER: So we hear different perspectives, different points of view about...
By having them respond to each other
not only does it encourage them to talk more but they are hearing all these
different points of view and by the end they grow in the depth of their understanding.
TEACHER: How many people think this is a balanced ecosystem? If you think it's balanced
give me a thumbs up.
If you think it's imbalanced, thumbs down.
So most do you think it's imbalanced.
Artistically I think it was much more subjective. Some people though that it was balanced, some people
thought it was unbalanced.
but, scientifically when we looked at it, it was pretty clear that it was an
imbalanced ecosystem. Based on their analysis because there were many more
secondary consumers.
So after having that group discussion I asked them, I say now make a new oval
basin but use the species from the Kelp forest.
TEACHER: You need to show a balanced habitat using the organisms that you know about from the Kelp forest.
STUDENT: We can draw like animals in the ecosystem of the Kelp forest?...okay.
They went on a class trip to Catalina where they had first-hand interaction
with the Kelp forest.
In order to create this art they had to look at the diagrams,
they had to use their resources, and really think what is this diagram depicting?
After they sketched out their basins,
we then put them all up on the whiteboard and just had a simple gallery
wall, and students commented on each other's work, or their own work. By having
an audience
there's definitely more of a sense of importance.
TEACHER: Do you think that's a balanced ecosystem?
STUDENT: No, there's not enough biodiversity for it to be a healthy ecosystem because I
don't see anything the sea star could eat.
So after this they revisit their basin. Is it balanced? To make sure that this is
a sustainable, balanced, ecosystem.
TEACHER: Does everyone think that there's something more that they need to add to
their basin?
Tomorrow, make sure all your species have food to eat, a competition...
I think that the students are getting a lot more science and scientific thinking
through studying art. The language and analysis that they get from looking at
art frees them to think about things from different perspectives, and it
allows them to understand that there's no right or wrong answer necessarily but
there's better justified answers,
there's more evidence for particular answers and that's really the same in
art and science.