Project Overview:
This was an intradisciplinary project involving Art, English, Spanish, Math, and Physics. In English class students read Claudette Colvin and learned about the Civil Rights Movement. Students chose a quote from the book that they found impactful and related to the Civil Rights Movement. In Physics class students created a visual representation of their quote through a kinetic design consisting of gears and symbolism. In the center of the wooden donut students created a large mandala on the center gear. The Mandala contained one symbol from each student. The symbols derived from interviews the students did of a family member in Spanish class. The inner circle was meant to represent how our individual lives affect the larger world around them. The mandala gear made the Physics kinetic art all move together as you turn it. In Math class students used their interviews to conduct social experiments regarding different racial groups.
Driving Question: How can we elicit empathy about injustices experienced by groups throughout history?
Entry Event: Students watched the movie Which Way Home together in English Class.
Resources: Claudette Colvin Book, Power Point, Brainstorm Worksheet, Mandala Pie Worksheet
Deliverables: Students completed a worksheet to organize their ideas
Ending Event: How Exhibition inviting the public to view the student projects at school. Students also attended the local Maker Faire off campus a month later to share and educate the public on their project.
Rubric: Art Rubric How In Art class the mandala was graded on: quality, 8 symbols included, variety in size, variety in line width, and all 10 values represented.
Successes: Students were more motivated to create a quality functional project because it was displayed along side several other groups. It allowed for high level thinking in the collaboration of a color scheme and aesthetics between their own group members and the group members they were paired with for the overall project. The students enjoyed using gears to represent something meaningful. There was a lot of learning happening through problem solving when they worked to combine the projects onto one board. A spread sheet that we color coded helped us organize the group members. It was also helpful that Physics and Art had the same students in each class.
Obstacles I would do different next time: It was challenging coordinating the groups and deadlines. I wish students had more time to put the gears together on the larger wood so they had more time to problem solve any problems that arise. Nest time I would make the middle mandala contain a deeper more symbolic meaning related to the Math and Spanish interview experiment instead of the simplicity of a symbol to represent the person they interviewed.
Driving Question: How can we elicit empathy about injustices experienced by groups throughout history?
Entry Event: Students watched the movie Which Way Home together in English Class.
Resources: Claudette Colvin Book, Power Point, Brainstorm Worksheet, Mandala Pie Worksheet
Deliverables: Students completed a worksheet to organize their ideas
Ending Event: How Exhibition inviting the public to view the student projects at school. Students also attended the local Maker Faire off campus a month later to share and educate the public on their project.
Rubric: Art Rubric How In Art class the mandala was graded on: quality, 8 symbols included, variety in size, variety in line width, and all 10 values represented.
Successes: Students were more motivated to create a quality functional project because it was displayed along side several other groups. It allowed for high level thinking in the collaboration of a color scheme and aesthetics between their own group members and the group members they were paired with for the overall project. The students enjoyed using gears to represent something meaningful. There was a lot of learning happening through problem solving when they worked to combine the projects onto one board. A spread sheet that we color coded helped us organize the group members. It was also helpful that Physics and Art had the same students in each class.
Obstacles I would do different next time: It was challenging coordinating the groups and deadlines. I wish students had more time to put the gears together on the larger wood so they had more time to problem solve any problems that arise. Nest time I would make the middle mandala contain a deeper more symbolic meaning related to the Math and Spanish interview experiment instead of the simplicity of a symbol to represent the person they interviewed.