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Imagination and creativity play a part in all learning situations and play a major role in the teaching of art. The interplay of skills acquisition, experimentation and the making of a finished product are factors to be balanced by teachers who are sensitive to the children’s abilities. The role of Art in the National Curriculum is to develop visual perception and ‘visual literacy’ through a variety of means. Children are to be enabled to express ideas and feelings, record observations and to design and make artefacts. Using Art in an Environmental context ideally uses an environmental topic as a focus so that children can be given opportunities to experience, understand and interact with the varied aspects of their surroundings. One major reason for using art to teach about the environment is that teaching of art uses creativity – in various forms. Without discussing ‘creativity’ too deeply, we can think of it as associated with making or producing something, a personal achievement where ideas are put together to produce something new to the individual – originality. Development of creativity, like anything, requires practice, cultivation of experiences, and accumulation of knowledge. Trying out materials or techniques which are new to the class is as much part of creativity as producing imaginative artworks. Their own creative input means that what the children learn is much more personal and meaningful to them.

These are some of the art projects that we have used to teach about our environment at Sutton Ecology Centre. They can be used relatively easily by classroom teachers who have access to a fairly standard range of equipment, e.g., paints, sugar-paper, scrap materials, and environments, e.g., the school grounds, local parks. They are mainly applicable to ages 7 to 12. Most of our art projects are preceded by work which focuses on an aspect of the environment. This is what stimulates the art work. – just doing scrap modelling is not environmental art!

Recycling Minibeasts

Aims: observation of mini-beast structure and function, particularly their role in decomposition; imaginative work.

Need: somewhere to study minibeasts; scrap modelling materials. We’ve used this many times – it was in a now out of print(?) folder of projects published by the Urban Spaces Project about ten years ago.

Focus: minibeast study – look under logs, in compost heaps and under piles of leaves – woodlice, earthworms, slugs, and the like. Emphasise their role in decomposition: if it wasn’t for animals like these, the Earth would have been smothered in dead plants and animals millions of years ago. Discuss recycling with the children next – using your scrap modelling materials – discussing what they are for, what they are made of, and whether they can be recycled or not. Are we going to be smothered in the things we don’t want any more?

Artwork: design your own recycling minibeasts, either individually or in small groups. They have to live on something we don’t want anymore and convert it into something useful. It can be any shape, not necessarily like the animals they have seen. It’s not generally a good idea to try to draw these first: work directly with the materials and let that inspire.

Food chain mobiles

Aims: learning about food chains and webs; study of forms and structure of minibeasts. Co-operative group work.

Need: ideally, somewhere to do pond or land minibeast study; scrap modelling materials plus string/wire and poles to hang the mobile from.

Focus: classroom teaching or, much better, field study of food chains, e.g., pond dipping. Divide the animals you find into herbivores, carnivores and detrivores (eat detritus – dead remains of plants and animals). Discuss how all food originally comes from the energy of the sun, and don’t forget the plants!

Artwork: The mobile-making works best in groups of 4 to 8. Use scrap materials to make models of the plants and animals you found. Everyone can join in making the sun, and each person can make a plant, as well as their favourite animal. Each layer of the mobile has fewer models – very approximately the right proportion of plants, herbivores and carnivores. If you are really clever you can make it into a more complex food web!

• sun
• pond plants
• tadpoles – herbivores
• beetle larvae – carnivores
• water slaters – detrivores.

Imaginary Tree

Aims: tree study; imaginative work.

Need: access to trees, drawing materials, e.g., pencils, biro, chalk, or paints.

Focus: Explore and examine trees in the school grounds or local park – what they look like, what they feel like. For example, blindfold exploration of bark texture; give them a hug; lie on your backs underneath canopy and follow with your eyes the branches to twigs right to the end, jump over to another twig and follow it back down. Pick up a few dropped twigs or small twisted parts of a branch.

Artwork: Back in the classroom, start drawing your twig. Imagine what happens when you run out of twig – what might your tree look like and feel like? What might live in it? Go on to draw branches and even the whole tree. Add bits of paper when necessary!

Ideas For Using Alternative Materials

Flour and Paint Batik

Wax batik is a process which is very well described in many books, however, there is a method using flour and water paste and paint which produces very similar results much more cheaply and easily, on paper or cloth.

Uses: group work on banners, textile work.

Need: small washing-up bottle filled with flour and water paste, the thickness of double cream. Powder paint, ready-mix, or paint-on dyes.

Procedure: Draw a simple design with the paste onto paper or cloth. Or go for a random, vibrant pattern. When it is dry, (a few hours), sponge or paint on top with powder paint, ready-mix, or paint-on dyes. You can fill in areas between the paste, or cross over it. When the paint in turn is dry, peel or scrape off the flour paste, to reveal your design. This can be pretty fiddly!

Vegetable Dyes

A good contrast to the artificial colours of bought paint. The ones I have used are: spinach = green; beetroot = dark pinky-red; red cabbage = purpley-blue; turmeric = golden yellow; tea = brown. 1 or 2 pounds of each vegetable should be enough for a class.

Uses: instead of paint for wax batik work, tie-dye, or thin washes, or for blowing using a straw. I’ve used this in a session with thick paint as a complete contrast. They do stain clothing – and tip them away before they get too old, as the smell of three-month-old cabbage water is indescribable.

Play-dough Recipe

• 3lb plain flour
• 1lb salt
• 2 tblspns cooking oil
• approx. 3/4 pt warm water
• powder paint or food colouring
• 1 tablespoon? Cream of Tartar

Put all except water in a large mixing bowl, add water a little at a time and mix well. Then knead for several minutes. Will keep for several weeks in an air-tight container or plastic bag.

Uses: modelling shapes, e.g., minibeast forms.

Paper Pulp Recipe

Newspaper, unwanted sugar-paper, egg boxes and other soft paper (not glossy) wallpaper paste powder (check there is no fungicide) or flour Builder’s Plaster or Whiting

Tear or shred the paper into small pieces then soak in hot water overnight. Mash it with a thick stick or potato masher to break down the fibres. When the paper seems well broken-down, squeeze out the excess water and knead it around and mash it some more to break up any more lumps. Mix in some wallpaper paste powder or flour to make a thick wet pulp, and gradually sprinkle filler (builder’s plaster or whiting) until the pulp has a clay-like consistency. Take care with the plaster powder, it can cause wheezing if breathed in, so sprinkle only a little at a time. Although paper pulp made like this has a clay-like consistency, it does not work exactly like clay, and the models will need a support. Fine wire mesh, e.g. fine chicken wire, is suitable.

Uses: Suitable for relief work, masks, small sculptures.

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