Art, Design, and Biology

Rationale

Can art serve as an instrument for social justice and environmental change? Asking questions is one of the practices emphasized in science and engineering classes across all grade levels in Illinois. Asking questions, obtaining, interpretation, analysis, and communicating information builds on students’ prior experiences. Students are encouraged to use observations, images, and texts to communicate new perspectives. Constructing an argument supported by evidence for how plants and animals (including humans) can change the environment to meet their needs is also a common core standard. 

On the Southside of Chicago, my students are confronted with poverty, gun violence, mental and health disparities, nutritional deficiencies, depression, unstable housing, and limited access to healthcare, all of which can negatively affect students’ ability to focus on their studies.  Some environmental hazards such as air pollution from traffic, gun violence and lack of access to green spaces will be explored and challenged through artistic forms.  Children and Nature Digest states that: “The lack of equitable access to nature is a social and environmental justice issue. Key to addressing this issue is identifying the specific barriers children and families experience in accessing nature and how they are affected by them.”⁷  Exposing my students to environmental justice issues through arts integration can assist them with gaining a greater appreciation for the environment.

Component I: Lyrical Abstraction

This section of the unit combines the concepts of personal expression, rooted in lyrical abstraction, with careful observation, or “close looking,” to help students analyze and respond to social justice art. Lyrical abstraction, a term art collector Larry Aldrich (1969), signaled a return to personal expression and experimentation in art. “In the 1910s, several different groups of artists were flirting with abstraction, each from a unique perspective. “Cubist and Futurist artists were working with imagery from the real world and altering it in conceptual ways to express abstract ideas.”⁸ This approach to abstraction, where something unknown is expressed through free painting, will be approached through the lens of Wassily Kandinsky. “Kandinsky likened his paintings to musical compositions, which communicated emotion as imaginative, expressive, personal, passionate and completely subjective; in other words, lyrical.”⁹

Throughout the seminar Art, Design and Biology professor Tim Barringer led us through the practice of “close looking” which is an art practice of careful and continuous observation and analysis of artwork. As we observed works in The Yale Center for British Art, Tim encouraged us to delve into details and underlying meaning. He referred to this practice as “conscious engagement”. He reminded us to focus on what we saw rather than jumping to interpretations and meaning. He also encouraged us to pose questions about the artwork’s subject matter, the artist intentions and how it made us feel. I will guide my students to use these strategies that will enhance their critical thinking and lead them to a deeper understanding of art.

Close looking puts emphasis on how to view the artwork itself. Lyrical abstraction emphasizes the historical, social and cultural context in which the art was created. My students will be encouraged to create and answer questions as they observe art work created to address social justice issues. As my students observe they don’t necessarily have to write, they can also use their sketchbooks as visual diaries.  Their sketches can be used to tell stories and create poetry. Drawings can serve as springboards into discussing a variety of environmental and social justice issues and solutions.

My students are already familiar with the process of making inferences. Inferences help my students draw conclusions on the basis of evidence and reasoning. For example, last school year, my students observed a sculpture titled “Conversation Piece” by Chicago artist Garland Martin Taylor. This sculpture was a large metal gun and welded onto the trigger were faces and stamped on the barrel, grip and cylinder of the revolver are the names of 100 young people who’ve been murdered by gun violence in Chicago.¹⁰ Welded onto the trigger are faces, which are meant to be anonymous.

Stamped on the barrel, grip and cylinder of the revolver are the names of young people who have been murdered by gun violence. Each entry features the victim's name, age, and date of death. For example, Arianna Gibson, 6 years old, 7 Aug 2011. There are 100 names total.¹¹

Figure1 A-Steel I Rise by student London Wooten.

This Sketch was a student’s response to the sculpture, “Conversation Piece” a “war memorial” made of scrap metal provided by a Chicago south-side manufacturing company. As students walked around the sculpture “Conversation Piece” they were asked to make inferences.

I will explain the similarities in close looking and making inferences. During this lesson we also learned that environmental contamination occurs from the use of firearms which results in heavy metals like lead, copper, zinc, antimony and even mercury in the soil. My students return to school each year sharing stories of how they experienced gun violence up close and personally over summer break.  Kris writes “Lead is a major contaminant from bullets and can leach into groundwater and surface water. This poses risk to ecosystems and human health.”¹². This encounter with a contemporary work of art was an intense sounding board to get my students to think proactively about the impact of violence in their environment.

Teaching Strategies: Activities

My students will apply questioning techniques from the science curriculum to look closely and analytically at art. I plan to begin this unit at the beginning of this school year. Tragically, during summer 2025 Chicago has experienced two mass shootings.¹³ One of my students reached out to me via text to inform me that one of her relatives was shot during one of the mass shootings and was recently released from the hospital.

Providing my students with safe spaces to discuss issues that impact their lives is key to their success. During our discussion on how to reduce gun violence, is critical to the social emotional well-being of my students. I will split students into small groups. Each group will be given the opportunity to share their ideas.

Figure 2A-Keloid and Scars II (mixed media on leather canvas) a little 36” x 24” Art Against Racism Artist Rhinold L. Ponder During this section of the unit’ I will introduce my students to local abstract artists that work with imagery through real world events and experiences.

One of those artists, my brother, Rhinold L. Ponder. He is the founder and executive director of Art Against Racism. Art Against Racism mission is to educate others about environmental racism and to provide opportunities and encouragement for others to create an anti- racist society.

His work, which deals with real-world events, environmental and social issues, will serve as a model for my students as they sketch, take notes and create their own art to address these topics. Rhinold works in acrylics, collage elements, pen, ink and wood. He works simultaneously on multiple series including fractals (designs composed primarily of circles and ovals. 

My students will view two paintings of which they will engage in close observations. They will be encouraged to analyze and interpret using sketch pads, questioning, and journaling. The first painting titled "Keloids and Scars," are on black and brown leather canvases and were painted by a whip. This is where literature, art history and ideas about race converge to disorient and provoke the viewer. The second painting titled “Strange Fruit: High Tech Lynching or Suicide?”

This multimedia painting is a reference to three of the most public trials in American history involving black men. Clarence Thomas, OJ Simpson, and Michael Jackson. In both paintings, he uses imagery from the real world and alters it in conceptual ways to express abstract ideas.

Figure 3A-High Tech Lynching (mixed media: acrylic, enamel and paper on canvas) 40” x 30" Art Against Racism Artist Rhinold L. Ponder

As my students engage in close looking and observational drawing/sketching, they will be asked to re-create their own visual representation or interpretation of what they are directly looking at (similarly to student example in image 1A). They should carefully observe the subject’s shapes, forms, textures, light and shadow, and other details to create an accurate and realistic depiction. This skill is fundamental and helps students gain a greater appreciation for art and the environment.

Close Looking is a technique used to teach students to carefully study a piece of art by observing it several times, each time looking for a different bit of information. Employing this strategy allows students to work both independently and collaboratively to closely analyze a work of art, viewing the piece multiple times. The process can begin with a pre-observation question, or a “hook” with the teacher asking the class a question or providing some background information. Question examples might include, “What do you see?”; “What story do you think the artist is telling?” “What colors and shapes do you see?” “How does this piece make you feel?” “What does this piece of art remind you of?” and “What title would you give this piece of art?”

I will display the art work and ask students to look at the picture in silence for several minutes and think about what they see. After the first viewing, using a graphic organizer for learning and reflection, students will write a learning statement, a statement detailing what they just observed, a brief summary. The students complete the second observation independently. As the students look, they highlight details in the work that support their learning statements. Next, the students, using the same graphic organizer from the first viewing, write or sketch a reflection. The reflection can be questions they still have about the piece, a personal connection, or illustration that they have to that particular part of the piece. With a turn-and-talk partner, each student discusses the details they selected from the artwork and how they support their learning.

Reflections are also shared. The teacher then conducts a whole class discussion regarding the details of the artwork in order to check for understanding. In addition, the teacher addresses student questions about the piece. This discussion is followed up with a series of visual text dependent questions. Students can work through these questions independently or in pairs.

Black Environmentalist

Students will be introduced to the term “Black Environmentalist.” Historically, black communities have been at the forefront of environmental justice movements, advocating for clean air, safe drinking water, reduced gun violence and sustainable development. Environmental justice activist Hazel M. Johnson (1935-2011), based in Chicago, documented the occurrence of chronic health problems present in the Altgeld Gardens Housing community.

This area was surrounded by landfills, industrial buildings and sewage-treatment plants. For over 50 years, George Pullman’s railroad company dumped waste into the landfills and impacted more than 10,000 residents living in the Altgeld Gardens community.¹⁴

Following the death of her husband in 1969 from lung cancer and the prevalence of skin and respiratory issues among her seven children, Johnson began investigating the impacts of the neighborhood's environmental conditions on the residents. Johnson discovered that Altgeld Gardens Housing Developments sat in the center of a 14-square mile ring of pollution from Chicago’s Southeast Side to Northwest Indiana, leading her to dub the neighborhood “The Toxic Doughnut.”¹⁵ My students will be able to connect to Mrs. Johnsons advocacy because some of my students lost loved ones during the Covid-19 pandemic and or their families encountered a delay in receiving the vaccine compared to Chicago residents living in more affluent zip codes.

It will also be important to provide students with background knowledge of (CHA), especially since the majority of the housing developments have been demolished. The Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) was founded in 1937 and was responsible for all public housing in the city of Chicago. The racial segregation embodied in these developments followed compliance with federal policy (the “Neighborhood Composition rule”), which required that the tenants of a housing development be of the same race as the people of the area in which it was located.¹⁶

According to landmark Illinois, after 1950, public housing began to rapidly deteriorate. Most buildings were subject to hard use and were badly maintained. CHA built 168 high rise buildings with approximately 19,700 apartments for families. In 1966 a group of tenants sued the CHA alleging that the agency was perpetuating racial segregation by placing projects in predominately black neighborhoods.

Altgeld Gardens had more than 1,500 townhouse apartments over 157 acres. It was built in the mid-40’s for returning black WWII veterans and was one of a few places in Chicago they could live. The industrial tracts comprising landfill hills, factories and refineries, infrastructural landscape behind fences and retaining walls, inaccessible and inhuman.¹⁷

50 landfills and hundreds of industrial facilities spread beyond their borders via the water, soil, and air and residents of Altgeld have suffered from cyanide-contaminated drinking water, polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) contamination, and 250 leaking underground storage tanks, and more, with some pollutants dating back to George Pullman’s railcar empire in the late-nineteenth century.  Here comes Hazel Johnson who formed People for Community Recovery to address the environmental racism with the Altgeld community.¹⁸

Altgeld Gardens resident Hazel Johnson started People for Community Recovery in 1979 to address tenants’ rights and environmental issues in her community¹⁹. She soon learned that Altgeld and neighboring Calumet City had the highest cancer rates in the area.

Currently, according to the Illinois Answers Project: Chicagoans in minority neighborhoods on the West and South Sides have the greatest exposure to toxic air pollution and other environmental health hazards in the city, this is a first-of-its-kind analysis that community groups used to fight Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s industrial planning practices.²⁰ The findings, illustrated through a citywide map and provided to the Better Government Association, were compiled by the environmental advocacy group Natural Resources Defense Council.

The group hopes to use the document to persuade city officials to stop a frequent practice of steering scrap yards, distribution warehouses and other polluting businesses to the same neighborhoods with large concentrations of Latinos and African Americans.

Figure4A-Chicagoans in minority neighborhoods on the West and South Sides have the greatest exposure to toxic air pollution and other environmental health hazards in the city map photo Chicago Tribune.

According to the Chicago Center for Health and Environment, the far southeast side of Chicago is one of the most polluted regions in the U.S. from steel production, metal recycling and petroleum refineries. There has been a great deal of public and community concern around pollution from storage of residual Petcoke in uncovered containers in the surrounding community.²¹ In addition, the EPA has identified high levels of airborne metals. It is not clear how much of the airborne pollution is from Petcoke or from local metal recycling plants. The UIC group is conducting a pilot study to examine toenail metals in local communities and less affected community schoolchildren, relating the toenail levels to pulmonary function and school achievement.

Explaining to students that “Toenail levels” refers to the measurement of substances, typically essential to trace metals and toxic elements like arsenic or mercury and nicotine from tobacco smoke, within a toenail sample.²² These levels act as a biomarker to assess long-term exposure to these elements through diet, environment or occupation. These are important terms for students to understand as they navigate through this unit.

Component II: Leaves and Lake Shore Drive

“Inspired by the Victorian artist John Ruskin’s belief that “if you can paint one leaf, you can paint the world” (John, n.d.)²³. This component of the unit uses the simple act of drawing leaves as a microcosm for understanding larger environmental issues in our community, reinforcing the interdisciplinary nature of this unit. He believed that “art should transform the lives of people oppressed more by visual illiteracy than by poor material conditions. His passionate desire was to open people's eyes to the free beauties surrounding them”.²⁴ Throughout the seminar, we engaged in some fascinating readings, field experiences and discussions. Professor Barringer invited us to think together about how to use close looking as a skill in teaching. He also posed a variety of questions. For example, how can close looking at art help us understand science?  How can scientific thinking enhance our understanding of art?

One of the highlights of the Yale National Initiative is its immersion in field experiences. We visited sites like the Beinecke Library, Center for British Art and Sleeping Giant State Park. During the nature experience we were instructed to identify two leaves as we walked the beautiful trail along this picturesque park. After our walk, we headed up to the shed-area and were given sketch books. Professor Barringer gave us four minutes to draw leaf number one. Then another four minutes to draw leaf number two.

The experience focused our attention on the biological forms of the leaves, but also on their beauty. Leaves are crucial to the purification of air because through the process of photosynthesis, they absorb carbon dioxide and emit oxygen. Essentially, they clean the air. This experience inspired me to take my students out into our neighboring Washington Park Conservatory to conduct the same activity. Guiding my students through a similar experience will help my students develop a greater appreciation for their local community.

Teaching Strategies: Classroom Activities:

In this section I will have my middle school students take notes on Washington Park, which is home to the renowned University of Chicago and is known for its beautiful landscapes and gardens. The Washington Park Neighborhood is also where my school is located and where the majority of my students reside.

I will introduce my students to urban sketching and observational drawing which are similar concepts. Observational drawing is sketching or outlining what you see which is a skill that can also be connected to other areas of my students lives beyond this unit.  Guiding or modeling this skill for students diminishes the anxiety or apprehension especially from those reluctant students.  Being able to draw what you truly observe is an essential skill for a novice or budding artist. Observational sketching requires practice and patience, while paying attention to the subject's shape, form, texture and value.

Using the observational strategy, I will encourage students to (1) start small by beginning with a single leaf, a rock, or flower to practice observation and sketching detail, (2) break down complexity and simplify landscapes into basic shapes like ovals for leaves, rectangles for trees and triangles for mountains, (3) Focus on light shadow shading is crucial for creating a sense of depth and form in your drawings, and finally (4) pay attention to textures, observe and represent the unique textures of different elements like bark, grass and water.²⁵

Figure 5A- Leaf sketching illustrations during Yale National Initiative Seminar Art, Design and Biology field experience led by professor Tim Barringer. Sleeping Giant State Park. Permission from classmates granted for display 2025.

Teaching Strategies: Activities

Observation strategy. Prior to the field trip experience to Washington Park Conservatory, I will bring in a variety of leaf types for this portion of the lesson. Students will be invited to come up and select their leaf for this activity. Students will begin by studying the leaf, looking for vein patterns, and understanding vocabulary terms like petiole, stipule, axil, blade and tip. This careful observation helps students to create a more accurate illustration. Students should then sketch the leaf’s outline lightly, drawing the leaf’s outline in pencil focusing on the overall shape and paying attention to proportions. This activity will also provide them an opportunity to connect their prior knowledge of photosynthesis. Also understanding that leaves exhibit a wide range of adaptations to suit different environments, including variations in size, shape and thickness.

According to Draw Botanical LLC, before students begin drawing they should understand the basic structures of leaves. Leaves are categorized into two broad types based on their vein patterns: (1) Monocots leaves have parallel veins and are typically long and narrow. Common examples include tulips and lilies and (2) Dicots leaves that display a branching vein pattern. Common examples include oak, rose, and hibiscus leaves.²⁶

Background Information Washington Park Chicago

Note taking will occur as students watch a video of Washington Park provided by the Chicago Park District.  Students will view a historical video to grasp a little background of the Washington Park community to connect the past to the future. “The Washington Park Neighborhood was home to over 10,000 black residents during the Great Black Migration. Washington Park was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and features a nature area. The park also offers a lagoon, aquatic center, playgrounds, basketball/tennis courts, baseball, football. soccer, cricket and softball fields.”²⁷ Washington Park remains a site for cultural and economic determination and resistance for African Americans. There are many examples of Washington Park residents utilizing the park to strengthen and celebrate each other and the Black Metropolis including the annual Bud Billiken Parade.

Washington Park is also home to the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center. Dr. Margaret Taylor Burroughs and her husband Charles Burroughs founded the museum in 1961. The museum is dedicated to the collection, documentation, preservation, study and dissemination of the history, art and culture of African Americans and of Black people worldwide. Field experiences at the DuSable Museum in the past has provided my students unique learning experiences that complements classroom instruction, fosters curiosity and close looking opportunities and enhances critical thinking.

Component III: Legos and Building Community

Students at all grade levels love using Legos in my classroom. Legos are used to create a variety of designs and miniature real-life objects. The Museum of Discovery and Science (MODS) is advancing environmental sustainability education in South Florida to inspire the next generation of leaders, scientist and engineers to have a deep connection to and understanding of the natural world.²⁸

As my students anticipate the release of season 5 of the Netflix series “Stranger Things”, they can relate to a town being divided on what tools and resources are needed to maintain a sustainable ecosystem and planetary health for their current and future generations. According to CNET News, the setting of the “Stranger Things” series is a “fictional small town in Hawkins Indiana in the 1980’s. The town has a secret laboratory which conducts secret experiments which inadvertently opened a portal to a alternate dimension known as the Upside Down. The main conflict revolves around the threats from the Upside Down affecting the town and the efforts of a group of children known as “The Party” to protect Hawkins and humanity.”²⁹

Many of my students want to protect their communities from environmental hazards including air pollution, toxic waste and gun violence. Using the Legos to create their own small ecosystems with essential components of natural resources and eco-friendly products will help them better understand conservation, biodiversity and engineering design. 

Using Hawkins as a model example for my students will help provide discussion stems. “Some key characteristics of Hawkins is that it is a small-town atmosphere depicted with a nostalgic, 1980’s small-town feel, complete with a school. diverse neighbors, a lake, hiking trails and local business. The Hawkins National Laboratory is a government facility conducting mystical research and experimenting with human subjects.”³⁰ My students are fascinated with this idea of “The Upside Down”, a gateway created by the lab leading to this dark dimension filled with supernatural creatures and things.

Classroom Activities: Design and Development

Utilizing Smart Growth Guidelines for Sustainable Design and Development is a resource for communities seeking to locate, design, and develop housing, especially affordable housing in ways that reduces household cost, improves quality of life and invest public resources more sustainably.

Using the Legos to model each step of the housing development process from site selection to building design. They are organized under three strategies:

1. Identifying prosperous smart growth locations
2. Creating “place” thorough neighborhood design.
3. Employing green building and infrastructure techniques.

Performance Based Assessments

In the state of Illinois performance-based approaches to teaching, learning and assessment vary widely. Depending on the learning objectives and the context, task may be designed to incorporate some of the following features

• Capstone projects
• Community projects
• Competency-based approaches
• Group projects or performances
• Hands-on projects
• Independent work or research
• Internships, work-based learning, and career and technical education
• Learning in more than one domain—in other words, tasks are interdisciplinary or develop and measure both content knowledge and cross-cutting skills and competencies
• Multiple opportunities to receive feedback and revise or re-do
• Multiple types of performance, e.g., a written component plus an oral presentation, or a group component and an individual component
• Presentation before an evaluation panel and/or audience of community members
• Student choice, within established parameters
• Student self-reflection

Classroom Extension Activities:

The same approach can also be used for sculptures and installations of artist like Torkwase Dyson, a Chicago painter who works across multiple mediums to explore the continuity between ecology, infrastructure and architecture. She examines the history and future of black spatial liberation strategies. Her abstract works toils with ways in which space is perceived and negotiated. Her critically acclaimed work “Bird and Lava (Scott Joplin) is a sonic, architectural installation that investigates Black spatial liberation strategies as experienced through the Ragtime composer’s musical experimentation. Taking the form of a semipermeable wood and steel structure that viewers can move through and occupy, Dyson’s project expands on Scott Joplin’s radical use of syncopation asking visitors “to experience ragtime in the round.”  Bird and Lava (Scott)

Torkwase installations are titled “Liquid Shadows, Solid Dreams” (A Monastic Playground),“I Can Drink the Distance”, “Dark Black” which addresses climate changing. Dyson also created the conceptual design for Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, the Costume Institute Spring 2025 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, which traced the cultural and historical significance of the Black Dandy from 18^th century to present day.