Green STEM Learning: Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: Ephemeral Nature-Based Art

By Mary Van Dyke

Andy Goldsworthy, the British sculptor and photographer, is famous for his meditative focus on the ephemeral in nature-based art. Think photos capturing instants in a process: melting snow circles in arctic light; leaves in spectral colors placed in a streamflow; rocks balancing.

Andy Goldsworthy

Nature-based art is a great fall activity for school students of all ages, embracing change, decay, creativity and the delight of being “in the flow”! Here are examples of Backyard Art inspired by Goldsworthy, arranged and photographed on iPads by 3rd and 4th Graders at Jamestown Elementary School, in a project taught by art teacher, Mary Gaynor.

Backyard Art by 3rd and 4th grade students at Jamestown Elementary School
inspired by Andy Goldsworthy
Project facilitated by art teacher Mary Gaynor

NOVA Outside, Northern Virginia’s regional alliance of environmental educators, recently hosted a workshop with Amy Perlman Gura, artist, teacher and parent who "strives to integrate her passions for the creative processes of art and nature." The result was an afternoon of teamwork creating ephemeral collaborative art and some very inspired Early Childhood Educators.

Photo by Peggy Ashbrook
http://nstacommunities.org/blog/category/earlyyears/

Voices from the Land (Voices) has created a school-based industry on creating poetry and art books and hosts teacher workshops integrating language and the landscape, art and culture. Inspiration comes from Andy Goldsworthy and a growing tradition of eco-art.

Find out more at the Voices website http://www.sharingvoices.org/ and collate your students visual and language arts into a poster, calendar or a album book as a more permanent record. If you’d like to know more - you can sign up for a Voices workshop near you or in a place you’d like to visit. This year Voices held a workshop in Ireland.

Voices from the Land Album from the Readingzone Blog

Voices from the Land, 2011, 2012
by Second Graders at Daniels Run Elementary School, Fairfax VA
Displayed at NoVA Outside's School Environmental Action Showcase
April 9, 2015
Photo by Mary Van Dyke

Next time you’re outside, collect and arrange some pinecones, acorns, sticks, leaves, flowers, stones and pebbles - and access your own creativity - even for a moment! Just go outside and do it! As Goldsworthy says, "A lot of my work is like picking potatoes; you have to get into the rhythm of it."

Mary Van Dyke is Visiting Horticulturalist at Jamestown Elementary School and serves on the Advisory Committee of NoVA Outside, a regional alliance of environmental educators in Northern Virginia.

Resources

Amy Perlman Gura