World Oceans Day Pledge

Yesterday was World Oceans Day, an effort by conservationists to focus global attention on improving our oceans.  Since one of our major focuses this year has been my son's environmental group, Healing Oceans Together, this is a cause that is close to our hearts.

The group is currently concentrating on two projects:  continuing to grow the community-based Craft Coral Reef, and developing a card game to teach people about the coral reefs and to encourage to take actions in their lives that will benefit the coral.

So a couple of H2O members got together to post a photography of their pledge on behalf of World Oceans Day:

So while we are still in fundraising mode, the students remain positive and committed enough to the project to make a public pledge.  We know we will figure out a way to get the money we need to make this project happen!

For more information about the Cards, Coral & Kids campaign, visit our campaign website.

Curriculum Resource: TED-Ed

Regular readers of this blog know that I am a great fan of TED, which shares "Ideas Worth Spreading" by posting FREE videos of some of the leading thinkers and doers across the world as they give presentations on important topics--all in 10 minutes or less.

Today, TED launched a new initiative called TED-Ed that will bring the TED philosophy to education (although I've used plenty of TED videos in my lessons already).   TED-ED is a TED You Tube video channel dedicated specifically to "Lessons Worth Spreading."  That is, TED-Ed posts more FREE videos of some exemplary lessons that TED has enhanced by adding appropriate animations or other features (when necessary--some talks are fine on their own).  Right now, TED-Ed has just a handfull of videos, but by next month, they plan to add lesson plans and tools that allow teachers to customized the videos to their own classes (such as embedding questions or comments, etc.).  They are also accepting nominations for outstanding educators or animators to use in the project, as well as suggestions for desired lessons.

TED-Ed is geared to the high school level and above, but I think the videos I watched would be appropriate for mature middle school students as well.  But check them out and judge for yourself.  For example, in honor of my middle schooler who has been enthralled with the deep sea since he was 2 years old, watch the TED-Ed video below on "Deep Ocean Mysteries and Wonders:"

This Weekend Is the Last Chance to Join in the Sea Slug Lovefest!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my son's middle school environmental group, Healing Oceans Together, is running a FREE online contest entitled The Great Sea Slug Beauty Contest.  They are asking people to vote for which of eight finalists is the most beautiful sea slug--judging not only on its appearance, but also its cool features.  Click here to participate--it is anonymous and only takes a few minutes....ESPECIALLY if you are from one of these states:

• Idaho
• Kansas
• North Dakota
• Oklahoma
• South Dakota
• West Virginia
• Wyoming

Those are the only states that they haven't received any visits from, and they are really trying to get at least one vote from all 50 states (and we've got the District of Columbia, since that is where my father lives).  So if you can, please vote so they can get the most participation possible.  But the deadline is tomorrow, Sunday, February 12, so please act soon.

H2O also just put on two free educational workshops for the community about sea slugs.  About 68 people participated in the workshops, held at the libraries in Raleigh and Apex, NC.  In addition to scientific information about sea slugs and how people can help heal the oceans, the workshops featured making your own sea slug out of polymer clay or playdough (for the littler students), making sea slug valentines, playing games, and listening to sea slug stories.  It drew a diverse crowd, and it was great to see the teens working with the toddlers!

Curriculum Resource: Studying Marine Invertebrates Through Song

We are studying Oceanography this year through our Oceans Coop.  However, we aren't just looking at the math and science of the subject; we are approaching it sociologically, artistically, historically, and through literature (and maybe some other ways if we can think of them).

Here is one unusual way that I just found.

There is an scientist named Kevin Zelnio who works with Duke University and the Discovery Channel on ocean issues.  He is the editor of Deep Sea News (among other blogs), and is particularly focused on marine invertebrates.   But Kevin has another side; his is also a folk song writer and performer.  He has written a bunch of song about the sea, with a particular focus on marine invertebrates.  Plus, he shares them with the world, free of charge.

Check them out below.  I think they are a fun way to bring another dimension to your studies about marine biology and ecology!

An Exhibit You Don't Want to Miss

My son's art teacher, Jenny Eggleston of Egg in Nest Studio,  had not one, but two, art exhibit openings in downtown Raleigh last week, and we were able to go to both.  Both were really interesting and valuable in their own ways, and both exhibits are definitely worth going to see.  But the latter one, which is on exhibit this month at ArtSpace, was such a unique and powerful show that if you are in the area, you owe it to yourself to go.

The first exhibit, which is part of the Earthly Musings show (five artists "reflecting on shifting emotions and perceptions of the natural world") at the Block Gallery in the Municipal Building on West Hargett Street in Raleigh, combines Jenny's highly detailed, yet surrealistic drawings with her evocative poetry:

But as much as I liked those (which are displayed with magnifying glasses so that you can appreciate the fine details of her drawing), I was totally blown away by her exhibit the following night at ArtSpace (by Moore Square, for you Triangle residents).

In this exhibit, which is entitled Carbon Load, Jenny was responding as an artist to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  However, (all the following is just my interpretation, so keep that in mind) she is not about blaming BP for its failure.  Rather, her art asks us to face the fact that it is our dependence, if not addiction, to oil that creates the situations where environmental disasters like the Exxon Valdez or the BP Gulf Coast oil spills occur.  So while we can hold these companies to task for their failures, we need to look at ourselves for the ways that our excessive use of oil and gas drive the oil production business.

However, what is so brilliant about this exhibit is that Jenny doesn't lecture us or nag us--she leads by example.  Or, that is, she creates an environment where we can be vulnerable about our contributions to the global environmental problem by going first--by being vulnerable herself.  The way she does that is that she took her beautiful graphite (i.e., carbon) drawings of sea creatures (which took who knows how many hours to draw), and handed them over to another artist named Matthew Stromberg and allowed him to alter her artwork using fossil fuels.  So Stromberg took these beautiful works, and soaked them in rocket fuel, or burned them, or covered them in carbon or tar, or hitched them to a submersible to be soaked in the ocean depths.

The show is the results of the collaboration between the two.  In some of the pieces, you can barely see Jenny's original drawings.  In others, Matthew's alterations mirror Jenny's original piece in beautiful and thought-provoking ways:

This is one of the most interesting and evocative art exhibits I've seen since I've been in Raleigh.  So I know I recommend a lot of things, but I really recommend that those of you who are in the area come down and see this show, which will only be on display at ArtSpace until August 27.

This raised a lot of questions for us, not only about our relationship to these environmental issues and our shared responsibility for ecological problems, but also about what is the purpose of art (one of the students in our group said this exhibit made him sad, and we talked about whether art is always supposed to uplift us or make us happy, or what value it can have when it makes us wake up to things we might otherwise miss or deny).  

I will also say that, personally, it makes me really glad to have such an artist as a teacher for my son.   While I have him do lots of art classes, and I think they are all valuable, I really appreciate the ability for him to learn from such a cutting edge artist who continues to grow and learn and experiment and risk with her own art.  That is own of my own rules as a teacher--if I want them to stretch or question or work, I have to do so first.  But Miss Jenny definitely does all of that--and more!