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da Vinci and Friends:
Curriculum Where Science and the Arts Meet
Background: Silk Paintings with Science Themes
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“Drawing isn’t a matter of what you see, it’s a question of what you can make other people see.”
- Edgar Degas
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Sixth grade students at The Blake School have had the opportunity to make their own science-themed batiks during recent years. Many have been on display on school bulletin boards, some are displayed on this web site and all have gone home with proud students. Sixth graders created all the projects shown in this gallery, and most were completed in about four 25-minute small-group tutorial sessions. The subjects range from landforms to botanicals and from astronomy to sea creatures.
Interdisciplinary projects that combine disciplines such as art and science can work to forge connections for so many students, and for some of us teachers as well. On two occasions I have attended science workshops on the use of batik painting to teach about landforms and satellite imaging, presented by Lydia Dambekalns, secondary education professor at the University of Wyoming. The venues were a convention of the National Science Teachers Association (www.nsta.org) and a workshop at Tufts University’s Wright Center for Science (www.tufts.edu/as/wright_center/).
Ms. Dambekans’ work was the cover story in the January 2005 issue of Science Teacher magazine. Reading it online may require a membership number for National Science Teachers Association. (http://nsta.org/main/news/stories/science_teacher.php?category_ID=88&news_story_ID=50082) The article includes the pedagogical reasons for encouraging students to use scientific and artistic perspectives of the Earth. After discussing the understanding of the scientific content, she presents the techniques for carrying out batik projects, methods of assessment and possible extensions.
Inspiration for this work can come from satellite images found at the “Earth as Art” site, presented by the US Geological Survey: (http://earthasart.gsfc.nasa.gov/index.htm)
Supplies (including kits for classes) for silk painting can be purchased from Dharma Trading Co. (www.dharmatrading.com). That web site also has thorough, readable directions.
Bruce Jones
See student work:
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