Diversity= Stability / A New Science/Art Integration Project at NRC

At NRC science teacher Mr. Jeffrey Blake and his students have created an intriguing and aesthetically beautiful bulletin board highlighting a learning unit in his 7th Grade science classroom:  Diversity = Stability.

First Mr. Blake taught to his science students that concept that Diversity = Stability from a traditional textbook.  This was two months' long unit.  Mr. Blake Art used art integration at the end of the unit to close it out.

"Importance of Biodiversity"

"All species in an ecosystem are interdependent.  when biodiversity is low and a population dies off, it can result in greater competition for the remaining resources.  The entire ecosystem can fail.  An ecosystem with high biodiversity is more like to recover when a population disappears from it."

(from the Populations and Ecosystems 7th grade science textbook pictured below)

Next Mr. Blake borrowed techniques from art education to further enhance student learning in this science area.  Students used a variety of colors and techniques to create their individual panda pieces that later became part of a classroom panda chain.  In an interview with STEAM PIR Triada Samaras, Mr. Blake said:  "The dabbing panda is from drawingnow.com. I used the dabbing pandas were as a post assessment tool. I gave them to students after a unit exam. I could see using art in my science classroom was relaxing for the students after the exam.  It also led the students to another level of understanding of the concept of biodiversity. I have students use art in this way in my science classroom all year."

In addition, Mr. Blake's and his students created several endangered creatures and flowers including a blue whale, a corpse flower, a snow leopard, a harlequin frog, and a tiger using art and science.  According to Mr. Blake: "On the back of the drawings I made lines with highlighters of different colors in different directions to provide a “key” for reassembling but the students cut them up. It was supposed to go with a research project where information would be included but we had 3 half days in a row and I needed to close out the unit. 

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Students assembled these pieces into attractive looking art/science collages that they installed on the bulletin board in the hallway at NRC.