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ENVIRONMENTAL ARTS EDUCATION
IN CENTRAL OHIO: A WEB RESOURCE
A Final Project
Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for
the Degree Master of Arts in the
Graduate School of The Ohio State University
By
Nicole Marie Hartkemeyer, B.A.
*****
The Ohio State University
2006
Masters Examination Committee:
Dr. Christine Ballengee-Morris, Advisor Approved by
Dr. Patricia Stuhr
____________________________________
Advisor
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Graduate Program in Art Education
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ABSTRACT
This project is a website resource geared towards art educators interested in integrating
environmental education through the arts. It The website features relevant literature,
links to arts and environmental organizations locally and globally, environmental
artists/artworks and green classroom ideas. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the
need and rationale for such a project. The importance of this project and corresponding
paper for art education is that it illuminates the wealth of existing resources and presents
them in an integrated format that is accessible to art educators.
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Dedicated to my parents
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I extend a heartfelt thanks to my advisor, Christine Ballengee-Morris, for her
provoking conversations, professionalism and support.
I am grateful to Clayton Funk for providing me with opportunities to learn about
web design and displaying patience while I learned.
I thank Tera Stockdale for her valuable support and kind suggestions throughout
this process.
I also wish to thank the entire faculty in the art education department at The Ohio
State University. Without their passion, creativity and compelling stories, I would not be
where I am today.
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Environmental Arts Education in Central Ohio: A Web Resource
I. Introduction to the Project
The purpose of this project is to establish an easy to use and highly
accessible website for art educators to find information about
environmental education through the arts. With the manynumerous
pressures teachers address on a daily basis many art educators do not have
the time to invest in research that is currently needed to find resources and
information about environmental education and the arts. Some resources
are difficult to find which can further discourage art educators from
pursuing the topic. Additionally, many art educators have not been
exposed to environmental education and, as a result, are unaware of the
ways that environmental education and the arts are intertwined.
This web-based educational resource is specifically geared toward
Central Ohio art educators although it is appropriate for any individuals
interested in integrating environmental education with the arts. It builds
on existing resources and utilizes the existing wealth of information
available to Ohio teachers interested in environmental education. Through
this website individuals will be able to more readily find and make
connections with the many various environmental and arts agencies in
Central Ohio and, as a result, share knowledge with biologists, ecologists,
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hydrologists, business and community leaders, civic organizers, local
artists, developers and various other community members. Included
within this website is relevant literature, links to arts and environmental
agencies and organizations locally and globally, environmental
artists/artworks, and green classroom ideas.
II. Project Background
This project has been developed with the intention of serving the
art education community, although it is my hope that it the web resource
will be utilized by individuals from many diverse backgrounds. My
experiences working with fellow art educators through the Ohio State
University and as a substitute teacher revealed that art educators share a
real interest in environmental education and the arts. The problem is that
there is confusion about what this means and a lack of understanding of
where to find relevant information. As defined by the Environmental
Education Council of Ohio, Environmental education (EE) is education
in, about, and for the environment. Education in the environment helps
people develop sensitivity to their surroundings and the natural world.
Education aboutthe environment promotes understanding of the natural,
physical, and social systems that make up our environment. Education for
the environment motivates people to work to improve the environment.
Environmental education through the arts addresses the above through an
arts-based focus.
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A report conducted by The Environmental Education Council of
Ohio on preservice teacher environmental education (2002) further
indicated the need for a resource about environmental education and the
arts. This research study found that:
A total of 38 institutions responded to the survey mailed to the 51
Ohio institutions with preservice teacher education programs, for a
response rate of 74%. Results from the study suggest that, on the
whole, Environmental Education (EE) is not well institutionalized
in Ohio preservice teacher education programs. Responses
indicate that teacher education faculty may view EE as being
within the realms of science departments, particularly biology.
Only three institutions responding to the teacher education survey
offer a major or minor in environmental education, and only six
provide opportunities to receive for credit practicums,
internships or field experience in EE. Less than half of responding
institutions report that their students are exposed to any of the
content areas recommended in NAAEEs Guidelines for the Initial
Preparation of Environmental Educators. Overall, calculations
based on the data collected indicate that no more than 39% of all
teacher education students in responding institutions are exposed to
EE in any way (p. 3).
While this example pertains to preservice educators, this lack of exposure
leads to practices that do not include environmental education. Many
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available to individuals with internet access. Teachers at schools with
internet access may have the opportunity to engage in web-based research
during planning periods as well as during planning time at home. By
making access to these resources convenient it is my hope that they will be
more widely used. A web-based format for this resource requires fewer
raw materials and therefore more closely aligns with the theoretical
framework of this project regarding environmental responsibility and
making universally balanced sustainable choices.
III. Significance of Environmental Education in the Arts
A foundational idea in environmental education is that it is
interdisciplinary. It is not confined by a specific subject, rather, it is
intimately related to all subjects. The health of our planet and its ability to
support future generations is a concern that spans all human activities.
Purposeful art education responsibly addresses the worldwide effort
towards sustainable practices. Art education can address environmental
education in many meaningful and powerful ways, just as biology or other
areas of science. In fact, by teaching environmental education in the art
classroom, experiential links are created between subject areas and to the
students daily lives which serves as a motivator. As Krug and Cohen-
Evron state, the linking of curricula knowledge also motivates students
because they can begin to see (hooks, 1990, p. 113) relationships among
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fragmented disciplinary information and inquiry processes (2000, p.
268).
The arts are important in environmental education because they
provide unique opportunities for creative, realistic and sustainable
problem solving. The issues that effect our environment, both locally and
globally, are complex and multi-layered and will require a great amount of
creativity to solve. These skills, of creative problem solving, transfer to
every subject area as well as to individuals daily lives. By using the arts
to provide opportunities for students to develop these integrative skills
they become enabled to enact positive change in their own communities as
well as around the world.
IV. Review of Related Theoretical Framework
Art education that includes environmental education necessarily
involves critical pedagogy. Giroux (1999) states that:
Critical pedagogy argues that school practices need to be informed
by a public philosophy that addresses how to construct ideological
and institutional conditions in which the lived experience becomes
the defining feature of schoolingCritical pedagogy attempts to:
1. create new forms of knowledge through its emphasis on
breaking down disciplines and creating interdisciplinary
knowledge.
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2. raise questions about the relationships between the margins and
centers of power in schools and is concerned about how to
provide a way of reading history as part of a larger project of
reclaiming power and identity, particularly as these are shaped
around the categories of race, gender, class, and ethnicity.
3. reject the distinction between high and popular culture so as to
make curriculum knowledge responsive to the everyday
knowledge that constitutes peoples lived histories differently.
4. illuminate the primacy of the ethical in defining the language
that teachers and others use to produce particular cultural
practices.
Critical pedagogy is not confined by subject areas and importantly
involves all individuals in the knowledge building process. Additionally
critical pedagogy takes into account that, cultural workers need to
recognize the importance of establishing political alliances among
themselves both within institutions and among like-minded groups. In
this transformative activity activists support each other to establish
coalitions for breaking down the debilitating separation that occurs in the
workplace and between workplaces. Ultimately the university and the
community are not segregated realms for theory and practice, but
integrated components of a single system (Trend, 1992, p. 27) and a
central element in the integration of cultural education into community life
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is the establishment of alliances between cultural workers in various
fields (Trend, 1992, p. 95).
By establishing these alliances with various fields, in this case
environmental, art educators model for their studentsboth collaboration
and community relationships. Environmental education in the art
classroom makes it, possible to imagine an art education that focuses on
meaningful responses to a planet in need. Purposeful creativity is required
- creativity directed toward increasing awareness, expressing ideas,
feelings and values, and problem solving related to local and global
ecologies (Lankford, 1997, p. 50). An art education curriculum without
environmental education is meaningful, but by neglecting to discuss such
topics it also is also unwittingly contributing to the lack of awareness.
Ana Mae Barbosa, an art educator from Brazil, knows well the
environmental devastation that is taking place in her own country, as well
as, around the world. She also is aware of the deep connection this
destruction has to social issues. Environmental problems exist as part of a
network of political, economic, social, and educational problems. Because
the nature of the problem is fundamentally interdisciplinary it can only be
corrected through interdisciplinary efforts and collaboration. Art
educators have a responsibility in their field to recognize, research and
teach about our societies pressing issues. Ana Mae Barboza (1991) states
that, Art educators should join with other specialists sociologists,
ecologists, scientists, geographers, as well as architects, urban planners,
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communications specialists, social psychologists, and anthropologists in
the search for equilibrium between preservation and development that
leads to a better quality of life and a better environment (p. 60). Ecology
then becomes, not a separate subject, but the concern of all the disciplines.
Cultural traditions and ecological decisions are fundamentally
intertwined. A uniting factor of this world we live in is the fact that all of
us are part of the ecosystem of the natural world. For many cultures
cultural identity is closely tied to the use of natural materials. It is these
ties that can teach us about cultural conservation and reconstruction. We
can understand and learn about the natural environment from past
relationships to the world and prevent the same mistakes from happening
again. Artists today are using recycled pieces for their artworks, a practice
which has its history in folk art. This art, as well as many other types of
art, considers the long term consequences of our choices and develops a
creative response. As Ana Mae Barboza (1991) states, Art educators can
encourage an ecological understanding of art and our world by teaching
their students about these artists and a respect for diversity, their materials,
and their creativity. (p. 71)
An art curriculum that deals with ecological issues empowers
students to become motivators of change in creative ways. In order to do
this the art curriculum should be enlarged to include art forms that actively
confront environmental problems. Krug and Cohen-Evron (2000) state
that:
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Life-centered approaches to curriculum organization infuse the arts
with other subject areas to conduct inquiry about personal and
socially relevant ideas, issues, or problems. Mary Jane Jacob
(1995) suggests that art must reach those for whom the arts
subject is a critical life issue (p. 54). For example, artist and
architect Paolo Soleri created a plan for an Arizona community
based on using limited energy resources. Ecological artist Viet
Ngo works with large-scale communities to construct sewage
treatment plants that use plant life and wetlands to purify water.
Alan Sonfist has restored portions of urban landscapes with
historic memories by reintroducing indigenous plants and animals.
(p. 268)
Taking students outside of the classroom space to explore environmental
issues on the school grounds exposes them to the issues relevant to
themselves and to the school community. Through the process of
exploring eco-artists and artworks students can begin to see the ways that
they might creatively work to create solutions to the environmental issues
directly affecting them. Artists such as Joseph Beuys, Helen and Newton
Harrison, Mierle Ukeles, Mel Chin, Patricia Johanson, Andy Goldsworthy
and Tim Collins are examples of the diversity of individuals working to
bring awareness to ecological issues. Using a diversity of such artists in
the art curriculum broadens the boundaries of art and enhances students
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awareness of ecological issues and validates the power they have to create
potential solutions to these issues.
V. Relevance of Eco-Art and Artists
Artists and their artworks shed light on environmental issues and
ecological systems. These artworks, termed eco-art, utilize multiple
vantage points from which to view this world and call attention to the
complexities of our physical and social environment. Investigating the
wide array of eco-art uncovers the potential and possibility of human
action in the environment. Humans and nature are fundamentally
interconnected and the arts hold an important role in exposing this
interconnectedness, culture is interdependent with nature and the arts
represent some of the most telling and extraordinary examples of everyday
life (Krug, 2003, p. 1).
Because human culture is fundamentally part of the natural world
it is of the utmost importance that ecological issues are addressed through
the arts. There are many artists who are using their art to make a positive
impact upon these ecological issues. The artist and writer Ruth Wallen,
draws attention to this interconnectedness, and to important ecological
issues, both through her words and through her artworks. She states that
her, artwork centers around stories-stories that reestablish connections,
stories that make relationships, stories that kindle meaning. [My] work
begins by closely observing a place in a deliberate attempt to slow down,
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to look and listen carefully (Wallen, 2003, p. 179). By creating her
works using metaphors and then reflecting upon them through language
that challenges traditional interpretations the interconnectedness of our
world unfolds in unique ways. This is clearly demonstrated in her
description of her project, View Points (1995), which was created for the
Tijuana River Estuary as a way to draw attention to the multiple ecological
issues that surround it, including pollution, border crossing and erosion.
Wallen (2003) states:
In the nature walk I encourage the view to contemplate the
biological and political realities that affect the estuary. Though I
was directed by park officials to avoid controversy and focus on
the biological resources, my challenge was to frame ecosystemic
concepts in a way that included human beings in the natural
environment.
The work begins with the metaphor of the Claude glass. In
the 18th century, Europeans on country walks would stand with
their backs to the landscape and use this concave mirror to frame
an idealized viewWhen the viewer walks down the path, instead
of focusing on plant and animal identification as in a traditional
nature walk, the panels refer to ecological concepts such as
niche, diversity or endangered species, as well as to
historical occurrences such as proposed sewage treatment plant or
the reliance of the endangered clapper rail population on periodic
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dredging to keep the mouth of the estuary open. To encourage
further thought, each panel includes a challenging question that
relates the human to the nonhuman environments
Additionally, each station includes some type of viewing
scope-ranging from spotting scopes to polarizing filters to
kaleidoscopes-that in some way frames or distorts the view. As
suggested by the metaphor of the Claude glass, ones
preconceptions about the landscape affect ones perceptions of the
estuary. This idea is summed up in the last panel, which refers to
Heisenbergs uncertainty principle, i.e. that what is seen and how it
is described depends on the position held by the observer. (p. 183)
The interpretations offered by this experience are much different than
those offered in parks and museums. The artist intent is to create an
experience that encourages the viewer to look at the world differently.
Wallen brings together aspects of nature in a way that consciously reflects
and enhances our bond with the environment. It has the potential to affect
us at the core of our being and point the way toward greater bonding with
our environment. She encourages the viewer to connect with this
installation through her use of language to guide the viewer in
contemplation and by involving the health of local water supplies.
Many eco-artists are acutely aware of the ecological issues that
exist within specific communities and in their own backyards. As a result
many artists are addressing these issues through their art, ecoartists seek
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to gain access to and become advocates for communities, working as both
co-learners and co-creators. Their work is collaborative and supports both
natural and social systems (Watts, 2005, p.1). Krug (2003) similarly
states that, most contemporary ecological artists are keenly attuned to the
fluctuating interconnectedness of art, aesthetics, ecology and culture.
Artists are working collaboratively with members of communities to use
their creative energies to solve real life-centered problems that affect the
interdependency of nature and culture (p. 7). The artists Jackie Brookner
and Susan Steinman demonstrate this collaboration with their work in the
town of Tillamook, Oregon:
Brookner and Steinman collaborated with the Tillamook Bay
Estuary Commission, a consortium of local civic and
environmental groups working toward constructing a four-mile
trail along the banks of the Hoquarten Slough. The trail would
connect the city with the bay and provide pedestrian and bike paths
and economic opportunities for the town. With a nascent
Tillamook Art Committee, Brookner and Steinman envisioned
plans to restore a derelict historic house sited between the slough
and civic center as a trailhead meeting place for eco-art exhibitions
and bulletin spaceand they helped design the conceptual plans
for the trail. Armed with Brookner and Steinmans concepts, local
teachers and the art committee published postcards and banners of
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childrens artworks for fundraising opportunities.
(Watts, 2005, p. 6)
Because of the increasing involvement eco-artists are having within
individual communities eco-art is becoming more accessible for many
educators. As a result there are more opportunities for collaboration and
participation between students, teachers and community members. These
collaborative opportunities are invaluable because of the connections that
forged between individuals and their local environments.
When art educators investigate eco-artworks with their students
subject areas come together in relevant ways. The process of examining
eco-artworks is interdisciplinary because all types of information is
needed to understand and interpret the artworks including: historical,
political, cultural, architectural, sociological, anthropological,
governmental, or ecological. Through the process of experiencing a
particular piece of art, students become personally involved and are able to
see their unique value in the knowledge forming process.
Through this website art educators will be able to easily find
relevant information about specific eco-artists. The result of this
accessibility of information is more informed teaching about it. The more
informed educators are about certain topics, in this case environmental
education, the better able they are to teach about it. This website is
designed with the tight time constraints facing educators in mind. It
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contains valuable information about environmental education and art in a
format that is clear and straightforward.
VI. Anticipated Outcomes
My goals for this project are multi-layered and evolutionary. This
project was designed with the intention of increasing awareness of
environmental education within the art education community. ItThe
website has been was designed to specifically appeal to art educators, but
it is my hope that it will be utilized by individuals from many other fields.
This websiteIt has the potential to inspire others to investigate
intertwining environmental education through art by exposing them to the
potential outcomes as demonstrated through by the resources provided at
through the site.
I designed it with the intention of maintaining and updating it for
many years to come. I would like to see this website grow and develop
over time, and I plan on keeping it current so that it is a reliable source of
information. I am working on linking it with both local and global arts
and environment agencies as a way of gaining visibility. Additionally, I
would like to see the art education department at The Ohio State
University provide a link to this site at their webpage. This increases
visibility for art education undergraduates, graduate students, preservice
art educators and prior students of The Ohio State University. The
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increase in visibility is important because it establishes an awareness of
the topic and recognition of the possibilities.
VII. Personal Connections
For me, the process of coming to this topic, of environmental
education through the arts, was gradual and very much connected to my
lived experience. Growing up my parents imbued me with respect and
appreciation for the natural world. From a young age I was encouraged to
respect the place in which I live and make environmentally responsible
choices. These lessons carried on to adulthood and subsequently to my
involvement in the art education field.
It has become clear to me through research and life experiences
that care for the environment can only be effective if it is part of your
daily life, regardless of where you are. By making environmentally
sustainable choices only when at home, care for the environment may be
of no real consequence. I say this from the position of an educator with
the realization that visibility is of the utmost importance. Young people
model their behavior both by how they are taught and by observing the
behaviors of those around them. By engaging in environmentally
sustainable practices everywhere I go, I intentionally model this behavior
to others, young people and adults. As a new business owner I have found
that modeling environmentally sustainable practices in the work place is
easy to do, especially after having extensively researched the ways to do
this. My business takes steps to conserve energy and water, recycles and
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limits the amount of waste generated by reusing materials. These
behaviors are modeled to every individual that walks into my shop.
Additionally, I am pulling together a proposal for the Olde Worthington
Business Association aimed at awarding businesses that takes steps toward
green practices.
All community members including business owners and teachers
need to actively participate in the stewardship of the planet. This does not
mean making huge changes in practice, rather it means leaning how to
make small changes that carry over to all aspects of daily life. Discussing
these ideas with others and sharing your efforts with the community can
actually work to unite communities through purposeful activities and
goals. This is no easy task and it requires long-term investment of time
and energy, one step at a time.
In my lived experience I balance multiple identities including art
educator, student, business owner, environmental activist and artist. By
utilizing environmental education through the arts in my own life I have
found a way to bring these many identities together in a meaningful and
interconnected manner. It has become a way of life imbued with real
meaning and purpose.
VIII. References
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Krug, D.H. (2003). Teaching art in the context of everyday life. ArtsEdNet.
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Solnit, R. (2001).As eve said to the serpent: On landscape, gender and art.
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Sterling, S. (2001). Sustainable education: Re-visioning learning and change.
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Watts, P. (2005). Ecoartists: Engaging communities in a new metaphor.Community Arts Network. Retrieved on December 12, 2005 from
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