The first time I ever heard of Arduinos was at the National Art Education Association's 2018 conference in Seattle. It was there that I attended a session on paper circuits and realized the potential of interactive art. One of the session leaders sensed my interest and told me, "if you want to take this further, you should look into Arduinos." A chance e-mail earlier this month from our school division informed us that Saskcode was offering PD surrounding Arduinos at zero cost to school divisions. I could not have been more lucky as I had thought I'd have to teach myself using online tutorials. Off Ms. Fishley and I went today to attend an introductory session on how to program Arduinos. It is mind boggling what a little bit of software, coding, and components are capable of creating. In the Arduino level 1 workshop we barely scratched the surface, but managed to program speakers, blinking LEDs, and a motor. I stayed for the Arduino level 2 workshop in the afternoon and learned about Lilypads (wearable Arduino Unos) and programmed a remote control car. This year Saskcode is funded by a grant they received from the federal government; they provide programming for K-12 teachers and loan classroom kits out to teachers once they've been trained for one month at a time. The presenters even had a slide about STEAM in their introduction, and noted that one of the key initiatives is to get girls and non-Euro Canadians interested in technology - they noted that current research illustrates that by grade 3, girls do not see themselves in tech fields and noted this needs to change as the tech field is dominated by white, middle-aged, men. Diversity is needed in the tech field to spark creativity and innovation. All in all it was a fascinating, brain-growing neurons, kind of a day. I learned that e-bay has Arduinos for a fraction of Amazon's cost, and that creating my own classroom kit is within my budget.
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In my grant proposal I budgeted $500 for a 3-D printer - I knew that would allow me to get an entry level printer since many sell in the $400 range now (I was looking at a model like this one). Since receiving the grant I did a lot of research about which printer to get. The more I learned the more I wondered if the school had funds to add to our initial investment, thus supporting us getting an even better printer. Ms. Bitner and Ms. Handwork both said they’d use a printer in their respective robotics and drafting classes, so I knew a demand for a 3-D printer existed in our school. Yesterday Randy from Wave of the Future 3D came out to Warman to give us a 3-D printing demo and answer all of our questions. Cool side note: his company is known for 3-D printing the largest object in the world out of recycled pop bottles (a camper trailer). The machines he sells are clearly advanced. They have a warm bed, which means the print sticks to it, they have a large printing area, and they print a wide variety of filament. My research centred around plastic filament (PLA) but Randy explained how the industry is now making filaments that include: wood fibre filament (porus), nylon (bendable), silver-nitrate infused filament (it stops bacteria growing), steel, etc. The PLA he stocks is made out of cornstarch and sugar, which Randy informed us composts in 42 days. I love that he recycles old projects so that it doesn’t hurt the environment. The machines run on minimal power and consumes about the same energy as a small lightbulb. The possibilities are endless. The demo was great, and I feel so good about buying local from Randy as it’s nice to know that when we have questions (or run into technical difficulties) there’s a real person who can help us troubleshoot and who is willing to come and service the machine.
Ms. Lebiszczak suggested to me that we partner to create a moss art installation. My mind is buzzing with ideas. Neither of us has ever done this before, so there is lots of experimenting to do. First we need to find some moss. Then Ms. Lebiszczak is going to get her class to test out ways to cultivate moss and then my class will create paint out of it using a recipe like this apply it to recycled wooden cabinets.
This week the collaboration between science students and art students began. Two groups of students from Ms. Lebiszczak's class came to present their Warman water testing findings to my Art students. My students were interested in the results. As an observer, it occurred to me that the collaborative process that is beginning between the science and art class adds a sense of purpose to what is being learned and shared between groups. Having an audience matters and knowing that one science student's work has implications for an art student's work creates purpose and adds meaning to the learning process.
Yesterday we gathered our two groups together and the science students shared facts about water with my art students, who will now create acrylic artworks that express clear messages about water. These artworks will line Warman High School's hallway as an art exhibit and collectively communicate messages about water back to Warman High School's student population. Some of the artworks' messages will be literal; for example, raising awareness about the average Canadian's water consumption per day (329 litres); others will communicate a social justice narrative about water; for example, there are many boil water advisories today on reservations across Canada - access to water is not equal amongst Canadians (you can see a boil water advisory map of Canada here). Art students will be creating works in the style of Luba Lukova. When they are finished we will meet up with the science students one more time and together apply UV media to the artworks - the UV media allows students to further communicate their narratives, but only lights up under a blacklight which means viewers must interact with the art if they want the full experience and, in doing so, they become engaged in their own learnings. We finished yesterday's lesson by reading Joanne Robertson's picturebook The Water Walker, which is a true story about Josephine Mandarin, and Ojibway woman who loved Nibi (water) so much, she walked over 10,900 miles to raise awareness about the importance of it. These are some of the key STEAM projects we will be focusing on this year:
I found out this week that Ms. Lebiszczak, Ms. Fishley, and myself received a grant from the Prairie Spirit Schools Foundation to infuse our classrooms with STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math). I am thrilled. I decided to document my STEAM journey for a few reasons: I want to remember where I found resources, I want to have an online place to collect and store ideas for projects, and I want to remember what I did this year STEAM-wise with students. In my mind, a blog is an easy and accessible way to help share my experiences and learnings with others.
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AuthorSarah Gerrard teaches Visual Arts 9-12 at Warman High School. She recently received a grant from the Prairie Spirit Schools Foundation to infuse her courses with STEAM. Archives
January 2019
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