STEAM EmPOWERment: NRC is rocking with Arts Integration!

Arts Integration is thriving at the New Roberto Clemete School.

In 3-D Art Teacher Ms. Mandal's art room students are working on a project to support the hurricane victims of Puerto Rico. Students were first inspired to do this project after NRC held a school-wide fundraising drive for Puerto Rico's hurricane victims, collecting food and many other items to send to the island. The flamingos project grew out of the students' desire to depict an bird whose natural habitat is Puerto Rico and whose natural habitat might be threatened by the storm. In addition students were drawn to the elegant lines of this unique bird as well as its bright colors.

Above: These flamingos were first constructed out of paper mache.
Here they are drying in Ms. Mandal's classroom.
First students learned facts about flamingos using the former link and their computers to do research. Next they learned how to construct a flamingo out of paper mache, a somewhat complicated and lengthy process. Ms. Mandal clearly explained each step to the students who eagerly added their own expertise. The flamingos are still a work in progress as this blog is written.

Above: Ms. Mandal demonstrates how to add feathers during an art class.

Above: Student holds his flamingo after working on it.

Above: Students created this poster for the Puerto Rico hurricane victims using their own faces.
Ms. Mandal's class also designed a poster for this project. The final "Flamingos" project will be an installation of many free-standing flamingo sculptures together with this poster in a public part of the school building. Students will take photos of this installation to send along with a written letter to the hurricane victims. Another arts integration project Ms. Mandal is working on with Assistant Principal and former Math Supervisor Mr. Krankel is a "mathematical/color wheel" staircase project. In this case four staircases are being turned into a colorful place where students can also see the table of square roots. Even the number of staircases is a math project: students will be painting 4 staircases of 9 steps each or 36 stairs total. Mr. Krankel will help them divide up the table of square roots so that each step has information. In terms of art, Ms. Mandal is having students use the color wheel to paint. The completed staircases will be colorful and informative. Stay tuned!

In more Arts Integration collaborations, ELA Teacher Ms. Gencarelli has been working with 2-D Art Teacher Ms. Aramayo to create emoticon puppets for the classroom that will help the children learn their vocabulary words. This Art/ELA projects was originally envisioned by Ms. Gencarelli who attended the Dodge funded WPU Summer Arts Integration Institute and who was very eager to try some arts integration techniques and lesson plans in her classroom. While her ELA curriclum does not provide her with much time for art-making activities during classtime, Ms. Gencarelli paired with Ms. Aramayo to realize her dreams. Ms. Gencarelli plans to track the changes in her students' learning with and without the handmade emoticons...Stay tuned!

In a separate collaboration, Ms. Cunningham Science Teacher is currently planning with 3D Art Teacher Miss Mandal for an upcoming arts integration project involving the solar system. The solar system is part of Ms. Cunningham's December curriculum and Ms. Mandal is happy to integrate this content area into her sculpture classroom. She is currently brainstorming solar system sculptures with her students. Again, Stay Tuned! Pictures will be forthcoming!

In additional arts integration projects, 2-D Art Teacher Ms. Aramayo is teaching both photo silkscreen and stop animation video making in her art enrichment classes at NRC. Both of these classes integrate science and technology directly with the art making process. In the first process (photo silkscreen) students are learning how light affects a special photographic film designed to record an image.

Left: Solar System Sculpture by Alicia Merrett

Above: Ms. Aramayo holding a photo silkscreen ready to print.

NRC 6th grade student, Masiel, took the time to explain the photo silkscreen process to WPU PIR Triada Samaras recently.
Masiel explained:
"It all started with the first silkscreen frame (pic above left) . We used two of my logos. (pic above right). One of them is my Zodiac symbol which is the symbol for Virgo. The other logo is from a summer camp I go to. Since it was mine we decided to start with this silkscreen. We followed the instructions from a book we read to make sure we are doing everything correctly. Here it is: (pic below)"

Masiel continued, "When we made this first silkscreen we did not use the same glass that we used the second time. It did not end very well the first time. We realized that when we looked at the book we had forgotten the glass! So the second time worked better. When we scrubbed off the neon parts, it would not come off like all the others. That's because we didn't use the glass. But the second screen print came out almost perfectly!" (See images below).

Art and Science combined to make impactful and creative posters in Ms. Learn's 6th grade science class.

First Science Teacher Ms. Learn and WPU Art PIR Triada Samaras spoke about the pedagogical similarities between art and science classes. They both discovered that the science questions (in the above image) posted in Ms. Learn's Science classroom are very similar to the kinds of questions that are often asked by Ms. Samaras during art class. Next Ms. Learn showed Ms. Samaras her recent and stunning bulletin board in the hallway of NRC, combining science, specifically the three laws of motion in physics, and art. Students in Ms. Learn's class made artistic posters using this science content and the result was an exemplary arts integration lesson plan.