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

• http://ameart.com/

Andy Goldsworthy

• Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Goldsworthy
• Photo of early work retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/content/articles/2005/05/04/andy_goldsworthy_feature.shtml

NoVA Outside - a regional alliance of environmental educators in Northern Virginia

• www.novaoutside.org

NSTA Early Childhood Blog

• http://nstacommunities.org/blog/category/earlyyears/

Voices from the Land (Voices)

• See http://www.sharingvoices.org/
• Example of Voices Album at the Readingzone blog https://thereadingzone.wordpress.com/tag/andy-goldsworthy/ and https://thereadingzone.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/voices-from-the-land-workshop/

Arlington's Growing Green Schools and the NoVA regional Schools Environmental Action Showcase

This week the Arlington County Healthy Community Action Team and the Arlington County Superintendent's Advisory Committee on Sustainability co-hosted a Growing Green Schools networking and resource-sharing event to recognize schools greening efforts.

The event is blogged by Jessica Haney at Mindful Healthy Life. 

The Growing Green Schools event helped catalyze and foster networks, partnerships and collaborative information sharing on health, food and nutrition and outdoor learning between local Arlington schools, community and providers of environmental and sustainability education.

Two days later, NoVA Outside, the Northern Virginia regional alliance for environmental educators partnered with Earth Force, George Mason University and many others to host the annual Schools Environmental Action Showcase.

Participating schools came to the Schools Environmental Action Showcase from all over the Northern Virginia region for an exciting day of activities including student project presentations, school displays and a competition for a school mascot made from recycled materials. Visiting VIPs included Senator Tim Kaine's representative Joe Montano, and a representative from Dominion Power.

The day was exciting and inspirational for all.  There was many people to talk to and ask questions such as:

• Did you see the Dolphin mascot made of recycled trash? 
• Did you check out the Dragon? 
• How about the high school students presentation of Radicle Radishes: their project growing Daikon radishes to help with an erosion issue in a schoolyard?
• Do you compost food waste at your school yet?
• Do you find the Eco-Schools USA framework helpful?
• How did the blades on your wind turbine work out?
• Are you tracking your school's power usage?

I was impressed by the increase in focus on sustainability in our area schools.
Many thanks to Eco-Schools USA for providing an easily adoptable framework that is followed by many schools already in Fairfax County.

Thank you also to the SEAS organizers: to Elaine Tholen (FCPS Get2Green Coordinator), Kurt Moser (Earth Force), Cindy Smith (GMU PEREC) and the Advisory Committee of NoVA Outside, and also to many many others for hosting and participating in this Schools Environmental Action Showcase - that is the premier regional event for youth-focussed environmental education!

I helped to organize both Arlington's Growing Green Schools and the NoVA Schools Environmental Action Showcase and I also learned from talking with students, parents, teachers and partner organizations.

During the week, I also taught several classes of outdoor learning at Jamestown Elementary School and started a Garden Adventures program for the Homeschool Club of Arlington. I put into practice the basics for students learning outdoors: observation and journalling. Students discussed healthy ecosystems, soil and planted native plants. We planted vegetables and weeded.  I developed signage linked to QR Codes to highlight "evidence of learning" in the schoolyard. I trained Middle School teachers on Seeing Math Patterns in Nature. And I continued negotiations with school staff and the community for building capacity to adopt an Eco-Schools framework at a local school.

For me it was a beautiful week for learning and teaching about sustainability both indoors and outdoors.

I look forward to more students and their mentors being able to join in these local and regional showcase events next year to share the energy, inspiration and knowledge!


Resources:

• Arlington's Healthy Community Action Team
• FAQs for Arlington Public Schools on the county website
• The Year of Soils Proclamation for Arlington County 2015
• Mindful Healthy Living Blog on Growing Green Schools
• NoVA Outside
• Eco-Schools USA
• Weed Identification for Schools
• Plant NoVA Natives
• Seeing Math Patterns in Nature