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da Vinci and Friends:
Curriculum Where Science and the Arts Meet
On-Line Curricula
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“How far will chemistry and physics . . . help us to understand the appeal of a painting?”
- Hazel Rossotti
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Old Time Astronomy
Science, Art and Technology
Pointillism
Japanese Fish Printing (Goyotaku):
Starry Nigh
Leonardo Homepage
Chemistry of Porcelain
An Artistic View of Outer Space
Educator’s Reference Desk
Stomp!
Science Songwriters Association
Natural Dyes
Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators
Guide to Pressing Seaweed
Art and Vision: Seeing in 3-D
The Science of Sound
Sound Theme Page
Old Time Astronomy
Very kid-friendly activities to encourage careful observation and compare drawing with photography as means of observing are located at SkyServer, provided by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, dedicated to mapping the entire universe and showing us the beauty of the universe. One activity has students drawing from images posted on-line and comparing with another student who drew the same galaxy or object, while another activity involves students in the class matching student drawings with the photographic images. There is a student sketch gallery, and teachers are invited to send their "best" student works. Adaptable to elementary through high school.
http://skyserver.sdss.org/en/proj/kids/oldtime/
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Science, Art and Technology
The Art Institute of Chicago created a year-long course for science teachers in the Chicago Public Schools to explore the relationships between art, science and technology in a museum setting. Now on the web, teachers will find lesson plans inspired by visits with artists, scientists, art historians, conservators and museum educators. The lectures may be viewed or read, and a variety of activities for in-class instruction are provided. Topics include art and astronomy, the chemistry and physics of light and color, perception, conservation, and careers in science, art and technology. Lesson plans are on topics such as the chemistry of dyeing cloth with indigo, an art-fraud mystery, and the effects of acid rain on stone sculpture. Nine samples of student projects show how teachers and students acted on the inspiration from the course. The books and media section is extensive and will be worth a careful review.
http://www.artic.edu/aic/students/sciarttech/
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Pointillism
Georges Seurat (France, 1859-1891) is a fine example of an artist who studied like a scientist as well as an artist. He was a driving force of the Neoimpressionist school, using small brushstrokes or dots in different colors to create contrasts in color and to create form, usually referred to as Pointillism He spent much of his life studying color theories and developed this technique to make colors more bright, based on the prevailing scientific belief that everything can be explained in terms of natural law. A lesson plan by Lee-Anne Penny (web link below) describes, "This method of painting was considered 'scientific' and less objective than traditional methods of applying paint because it eliminates the artist's personal mannerisms of handling. The artist is no longer present in the 'mechanical' production of the work...The dot allegorizes the modern techniques of mass production (ever look closely at pre-digital newspaper photos, or the art of Roy Lichenstein?)." Just as in a color comic seen magnified, green is made up of dots of yellow and blue, violet is made of blue and red dots, and these are combined in the human nervous system to "see" one color. Related curricula and resources follow.
Elementary and middle school lesson plan (KinderArt):
http://www.kinderart.com/arthistory/qtippointillism.shtml
High School lesson plan (Melissa's Myriad Art Lesson Lesson Plans):
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8020/dbaeup9.html
Biography of Seurat and images of his paintings (WebMuseum):
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/seurat/
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Japanese Fish Printing (Goyotaku)
Making prints directly from fish can easily lend itself to an arts-science connection, documenting external features or experimenting with color and composition. The following web sites give ideas and directions.
Photographs of the main steps in the fish printing process make it come alive:
http://www.4j.lane.edu/partners/eweb/ve/gyotaku/gyotaku.html
For comparison, this site has professionally done fish prints and plant prints.
http://www.catchofthedayoregon.com/pages/fish.html
Lesson plan directions for fish printing from the AmeriCorps Watershed Stewards Project:
http://www.northcoast.com/~fishhelp/edu_f/print.html
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Starry Night
This is an elementary or middle school art lesson on Vincent Van Gogh, easily connected to astronomy because the subject in this lesson is Van Gogh’s painting, Starry Night. Similar techniques could be used for artistic renderings of actual student observation of the night sky, showing star patterns or constellations the students find. Be sure to check the links to extension activities with oil pastels and acrylic paints.
http://www.bnet.org/hvsd/goals2000/starrynight.html
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Leonardo Homepage
This excellent resource is from Science Learning Network staff at the Museum of Science, Boston. It provides information about daVinci the scientist, artist and inventor, as well as hands-on classroom activities, interactive activities and much more. It is especially appropriate for grades 4-8; the "Letter to Teachers"has useful planning tips.
http://www.mos.org/sln/Leonardo
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Chemistry of Porcelain
The Getty Center (Los Angeles) has a lot of on-line art lessons. This high school lesson relates to the chemistry and history of soft-paste and hard-paste porcelains. It correlates to California standards in art, social studies and science.
http://www.getty.edu/education/for_teachers/curricula/decarts/decarts_lesson05.html
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An Artistic View of Outer Space
An elementary art lesson which integrates astronomy and visual art through pastel drawings of solar system objects on black paper is given at this site, part of the North Carolina Teachers Network. Objectives range from the use of oil pastels to include "color mixing and blending to achieve desired effects" to "compare and contrast the Earth to the other planets in terms of size."
http://www.learnnc.org/lessons/KarenCanfield5232002108
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Educator’s Reference Desk
Formerly known as AskERIC, this site has a searchable data base of lesson plans, also listed by discipline. In the "Interdisciplinary" category are a lot of lessons for elementary students (but all grades K-12 are included), combining science with art and/or music.
http://www.eduref.org/Virtual/Lessons/index.shtml
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Stomp!
This is a show which is familiar to some music teachers. The web site for the show has a section "Percussion for Kids" which has nine lessons and ten activities for younger kids, as well as four activity/lessons for older students. The topics are serious science, in the context of powerful percussion performance . . . timbre, intensity, the speed of sound, resonance and noise vs. sound are among the subjects addressed in the "older" activities.
http://www.stomponline.com/
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Science Songwriters Association
This organization Promotes the use of music in science education, In the section "Find Songs" you will find links to their members’ web pages where you may get lyrics, song samples, details on school assembly, family night or professional development presentations from several performing groups. Some are currently science teachers. The links will offer chances to buy some of their CD's, etc. as well. Some even have lesson plans, such as one offered by AstroCappella, “Meet the Neighbors - Planets Around Nearby Stars,” a High-school level activity that uses real Hubble data!
http://www.science-groove.org/SSA/
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Natural Dyes
This unit introduces students to plant dyes and their history and highlights investgative skills as they explore variables in their own plant dyeing. The integration of plant science with stories from history gives a human touch. Anecdotes bring in drama, economics and geography as well. Students practice numerous scientific methods as they carry out controlled experiments and trial-and-error experiments. Connections with art are made as the students use the results of their dyeing experiments to make some handcrafted items, a real-life application.
http://www.thebakken.org/education/SciMathMN/plant-dyes/dyes1.htm
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Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators
A categorized list of sites useful for curriculum and professional growth, including sections on art and architecture; science and technology.
http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/
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Guide to Pressing Seaweed
This on-line guide to making "seaweed art" is intended for teachers, students or anyone interested in pursuing this form of art which involves pressing and arranging seaweeds, which can then be mounted and framed. Written by an artist-scientist team, it is very thorough and richly illustrated with photographs. A contact is provided for booklet formats which may be purchased for classes.
http://www.cryptogamicbotany.com/lm_press_seaweed.html
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Art and Vision: Seeing in 3-D
This curriculum guide for teachers of grades 4-6 (adaptable to other ages.) explores the three-dimensional techniques used by well-known artists such as Vincent van Gogh and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The guide includes information on the human visual system, size scaling, overlapping, atmospheric perspective and linear perspective. Read and download at the Web site of Eyecare America’s Museum of Vision.
http://www.eyecareamerica.org/eyecare/museum/resources/index.cfm
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The Science of Sound
This is a series of experiments about sound and its application to animals, musical instruments and communications. This unit was designed for use in the second grade.
http://www.galaxy.net/~k12/sound/index.shtml
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Sound Theme Page
Students and teachers will find curricular resources (information, content...) to help them learn about this topic. In addition, there are links to instructional materials (lesson plans) which will help teachers provide instruction in this theme.
http://www.cln.org/themes/sound.html
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