Climate Change Education and Art

Any sixth grade teacher out there will tell you, their students are prone to fidgeting. Sometimes this fidgeting manifests itself in the desire to draw and doodle. Instead of asking students to practice self- control or worry that this habit will create a mural on a classroom desk, why not harness your students creativity and integrate art into your classroom curriculum?

I am a sixth grade science teacher who has fallen in love with integrating art into my science lessons. This all started in September when I noticed that an alarming amount of my students were constantly trying to discreetly use our classroom whiteboards to draw on during class. I also noticed that one of my ELL (English Language Learner) level 2 students was able to draw elaborate pictures for notes explaining what we were learning when he struggled to put his ideas into words. This got me thinking and so one day I asked my students, “Who considers themselves an artist in some way, shape, or form?” Almost every one of my students raised their hands! I proceeded to tell them that I believe that art and science work very well together especially in the expression of science content. Their eyes sparkled as we watched an amazing clip from NPR about the microbiome that illustrated this concept in a magical world of art.

Check out the video here →

NPR video about the human microbiome.

From then on both my students and I were hooked on this idea of integrating art into science. In this blog post I will discuss two particular ways in which I put this into practice in my classroom.

Practice #1 Using Art to Capture Pre-Conceived Notions Especially with Socioscientific Topics

The topic of climate change is a complex and a potentially sensitive socioscientific issue. Because climate change affects every aspect of life and the world, there are many different ways to go about teaching climate change. One helpful tool to use at the beginning of your climate change unit is to use art to decipher students’ preconceived notions about the topic. What I usually do is give my students a blank piece of paper (or have them use their notebooks) with just the prompt, “What are the causes and effects of climate change?”. This can be paired with having them write out an explanation of what they drew on the back of their sheet but this is not necessary. You can get great insights into what young students already think about this issue through their drawings. If you have any students who prefer working digitally you can have them work on a program like TinkerCad. As an added layer, have the students interview one another about what their drawing is portraying. I usually provide interview prompts and try to record a couple of the interviews for later reflection. Hold on to these drawings and use them at the end of the unit as a reflection piece. Have the students review their drawings and edit them in order to reflect on what they have learned.

This is a before picture for the prompt, “What are the causes and effects of climate change?”. In an interview with this student they express that the cause is pollution from factories and cars. This is an example of students using prior knowledge without being able to specifically name important vocabulary such as “carbon dioxide” when referencing pollution. Students may also portray common visuals of climate change that have been portrayed in the media. For example, in many “before drawings” there are polar bears because this is a very salient example of climate change in our every day culture. In this example, the drawing of a hot world also stemmed from the student’s use of the term “global warming” instead of the more accurate term, “climate change”.

This is an example of an “after picture” where the same student has added new academic language to their picture. An example of this is the use of science specific terms such as “greenhouse gases” and “combustion”. A student may also add new images to portray the knowledge they have gained throughout the unit. .

Practice #2 Using Art instead of Your Classic “Study Guide”

Each of the units in my class starts with either an anchor phenomena or an “MIQ”, Most Important Question, that is circled back to often to root ourselves and create a deeper understanding of an issue. This is exceptionally important with a complex topic such as climate change. Before an end of the unit assessment, I ask students to create their own types of study guides in the form of a concept map. Our anchor phenomenon is the center of the concept map and from there, their own creativity dictates how they want to display their knowledge. This project asks them to think back all the way to the beginning of the unit and it pushes them to see how each piece of our greater content puzzle connects back to the bigger question we were trying to answer all along. Again, for those students who prefer to work digitally, there are many different mediums such as MindMup. The practice of creating concept maps or mind maps may start out a bit intimidating for your students but in doing it with each unit, you will see their creativity begin to flourish.

This is a concept map created by a student to address the anchor phenomenon question; “Why is the ice on Earth melting?”

Here is another example of a different concept map addressing the same anchor phenomenon question.

I encourage you to try to integrate art into your classroom too! I would also love to know what techniques you are trying! Let your classroom be a place of great creativity. Also, make sure to put your students’ art up on the wall because it makes the classroom look beautiful!