Activity
Create an Abstract Dreamscape
In this activity, you will create an art piece inspired by the work of Bernice Bing.
Objective: Students will consider the ways art can be used as activism in the context of environmentalism and National Park preservation.
Chiura Obata was a devoted environmentalist throughout his life. His signature landscapes celebrate the natural world. His artwork invites viewers to look upon nature with gratitude and thoughtfulness to understand its value.
Earth and Human Activity
ESS3.C Human activities in agriculture, industry, and everyday life have had major effects on the land, vegetation, streams, ocean, air, and even outer space. But individuals and communities are doing things to help protect Earth’s resources and environments.
Visual Arts
Visual Arts 3.0 Understanding the Historical Contributions and Cultural Dimensions of the Visual Arts.
4.VA:Re7.2 Interpret art by analyzing use of media to create subject matter, characteristics of form, and mood.
Visual Arts 5.0 Connecting and Applying What is Learned in the Visual Arts to Other Art Forms and Subject Area and to Careers
5.VA:Cn11 Identify how art is used to inform or change beliefs, values, or behaviors of an individual or society.
6.VA:Re7.2 Analyze ways that visual components and cultural associations suggested by images influence ideas, emotions, and actions.
Media Arts
6.MA:Cn11 Discover and share ideas for media artworks using play and/or experimentation.
Research and show how media artworks and ideas relate to personal life, and social, community, and cultural situations, such as personal identity, history, and entertainment.
English Language Arts
6-12.SL.1 Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade appropriate topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
PBS film Clip: “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea”
Student writing worksheet (download from sidebar above)
Internet access
Whiteboard
Large blank paper for final project
Art supplies
Environmentalist: (noun) A person who is concerned with or advocates the protection of the environment.
Environmental Art: (noun) “For centuries, the landscape’s appearance in art was meant to construe either awe for our natural world, or as a background subject for the documentation of human narratives. In the 20th century, alongside rising global concerns surrounding the state of the environment’s health, and our impact as humans upon it, many artists started creating works in collaboration with the physical world to draw attention to ecological issues as well our relationship and contribution to them. As a more defined concept, Environmental art has gained more traction since the 1990s when artists began to think about their surroundings not just in terms of lived or built space, but as a cohesive system in which humans have a central part to play.”
Conclusion
Extension