Landscape, Art, and Ecology

Teaching Strategies

The teaching strategies used in the lessons of this unit are Notice and Wonder, questioning, compare and contrast, and gamification. The lessons that look at artwork will start with Notice and Wonder, allowing students to formulate their own points of view regarding the piece. Next, they will be asked guiding questions to help them reach a deeper understanding of the context and meaning of the landscapes. Once they have viewed several examples of landscape painting and photos, they will compare and contrast some of them. Several lessons about climate change²⁴ will be done before this unit, therefore students the lessons in this unit will be reminding them about the causes and solutions of climate change since the mid 19th century. Younger students can draw a sustainable city block, while older students can formulate an opinion on whether or not we are in the Anthropocene. Once students are secure in their understanding of climate change, they will play a point and click game utilizing a digitally edited landscape painting with hidden clues and questions. Students will earn points as they explore different elements in the landscape paintings and earn points while working their way to an “Official Change Agent” badge. The culminating end of unit activity will be for them to then create their own point and click game. This will further their understanding and help them spread awareness about what they’ve learned- like a true agent of change! These teaching strategies will allow students to answer three essential questions:  What messages do artists convey with their work? What is the relationship between people and climate change? and How can students become Change Agents?

Notice and Wonder

The Notice and Wonder strategy is almost the opposite of the questioning strategy. Instead of posing questions with definitive answers, students are asked to completely initiate the thought process about a subject in question. It is a great way to lead into the questioning strategy because students’ initial observations are far less formulaic. Students will gain a sense of self-directed learning, as their very own thoughts and observations guide their answers to any questions later posed.

Notice and Wonder in these lessons will have students look at landscapes and tell what they see. It can be done by giving students a set time limit and asking for them to write as many things as possible, ie. “what do you see”. Then they are given a new time limit and asked to observe again, ie. “give me 5 more observations”. It can also be done as an open class discussion, having students call out observations, pushing after each revelation for more from the class. This style of Notice and Wonder can break the ice for students that are shy or reluctant.

Questioning

“Strategic use of questions can deepen learning, build a growth mindset, and help students become more aware of their own thinking processes.”²⁵ After students have a chance to write down all the things they notice and wonder about the images they view in these lessons, they will be asked to revisit their observations with targeted questions in mind: how is what you observed aligned or misaligned, in sync or contrasting to the rest of the painting? This is a question designed to have students thinking more critically about what they saw with a comparison mindset. Then to get them to decide on whether or not the artist's “snapshot” of the scene would be different had it been taken at a different time in history, follow-up questions could be: If you imagine this scene had been painted 50 (or 100) years previously, how would it be different? What about 50 (or 100) years later?

Gamification

Our students are digital natives, therefore teaching that incorporates technology is a must. By using elements of gamification in this lesson, paintings from two hundred years ago become ripe candidates for student interest and enthusiasm. “Gamification is the application of game-design elements and game principles in non-game contexts. It can also be defined as a set of activities and processes to solve problems by using or applying the characteristics of game elements.”²⁶ Gamification in the classroom, if done correctly, can lead to higher engagement and motivation.²⁷ The gamification elements that this unit uses will be that the rules are easy to follow, the questions are not too hard, students can earn points and badges, and teachers can allow students to display their achievements  via a badge leaderboard.