Friday, March 30th, 2012
Working on a new project based on Motion with 4th class of Gaelscoil Naomh Phádraig, as part of the CraftEd project initiated by the Crafts Council of Ireland to bring artists into primary schools to introduce different craft experiences to school communities.
http://www.learncraftdesign.com/craft-materials/man-made-new-technologies-2
http://www.learncraftdesign.com/
Category : News | Project
Tags : craft, crafts in the classroom, kids crafts, learn craft design
Thursday, March 3rd, 2011
Waterwatch, a water conservation project at Glenasmole national school Dublin.
Discovering the imprtance of conserving water through exploring the properties of glass.
Project Concept
Bringing an awareness to the school wide campaign to conserve water at home and at school while learning about glass.
Developing a knowledge on sources of water, qualities of water, water use, wastage, water reuse and water conservation. Learning how children can be part of a national campaign to save water starting in their own home and school.Learning about glass, its inherent qualities, uses, and accessibility to them as an exciting material in which to transfer ideas and concepts, which helps to bring awareness on water conservation.
Children from Glenasmole, Dublin, age 4-5.
How it worked!
In this project children of a very young age became aware of water conservation through engagement and responsibility. Through this project they learnt to observe why and how to conserve water by understanding our dependency on it as a natural resource. Research activities included water harvesting, developing a ‘water watch squad’ to observe discuss and report on findings in home and school. Establishing a school wide quest to find uses for wastewater.
Children developed an understanding of glass qualities equating them with similar properties of water, e.g. transparency, magnification, reflection etc. they created objects from domestic and industrial glass waste and harvested water. This included making sound vessels with water and glass vessels. Wind, and percussion instruments were made. The students discussed and listened to variation in tone. Comparing vessels and water levels creating different sounds. They arranged sounds into ascending scale. The project was widened to involve older classes to compose and create water ‘rain song’ to be performed on harvested water and repurposed glass vessels.
Outcome
Awareness of the school Water Conservation campaign was heightened to reach the wider community.
Children aged 4 -6 were the driving force behind this awareness. They learnt to work with glass in a schoolroom setting, making a series of items using repurposed glass to bring awareness of this campaign to the fore. This included glass collage drawing and painting on glass, based on watery subjects, glass instruments and personal water conserving teeth rinsing aids. A performance on the musical instruments is to take place in the school by the older children in the coming months.
Category : Project
Tags : children working with glass, cold glass painting, crafted, crafts in the classroom, Glass, glass and craft, glass collage, glass painting, glenasmole national school, kids crafts, mini beasts, national school dublin water conservation, rainsong, save water, sketching for kids, Water conservation, Water conservation in schools, waterwatch
