BALD EAGLE AREA SCHOOL DISTRICT

Curriculum links art, science for students

Ed Mahon

BOGGS TOWNSHIP — For Bald Eagle Area elementary students, the soil is where art meets science.

In one lesson, students will study how pressure, moisture and other factors influence the color of soil — which they’ll also use to paint.

That unit is one part of a new curriculum, which teachers began fully using this year and which the school board unanimously approved Thursday night.

School officials say the 105- page curriculum provides more interdisciplinary connections between art, science, math, social studies and other subjects.

THE REASON: “I think that in order to justify what we do and to keep art education alive, you have to make the connections with other teachers,” said Janet Riggio, the elementary art teacher at Wingate and Howard Elementary schools. She and Luke Laubscher, the art teacher at Port Matilda and Mountaintop Area Elementary schools, developed the curriculum together last year.

SOILS FROM DIFFERENT STATES: In one lesson last year, Riggio’s students painted using clay and soil from Florida, Colorado, New Mexico and Pennsylvania. The colors ranged from deep gray, found near water, to deep brown, where the soil mixed with clay.

“The best color that I was able to find was from Harrisburg. It was a rusty red,” said Riggio.

WHAT STUDENTS CREATED: “They would paint mostly landscapes,” Riggio said, adding that students learned “through trial and error. When they tried to create a deer, it was not extremely successful, because of the little details. So in a sense, they learned what works, what doesn’t with the amount of water that you put in paints.”

FREQUENCY: Elementary students receive 30 to 50 minutes of instruction once during every six day cycle.

WHAT THE ADMINISTRATION IS SAYING “I'm excited because of the strong science connections, and we want to do more with integrating across the district,” said Marsha Sackash, the district’s director of elementary education.

BIG IDEA: “Each unit begins with a big idea, and then from that you have questions that narrow it a little more and a little more,” Riggio said. “...It actually lends itself quite well to a beautiful conversation, to open up a unit of study to the children.”

FOR INSTANCE: In third grade, the curriculum asks, “What do we know about the earth and to what extent can artists interpret information from science to facilitate understanding our earth and ourselves?”

Then the curriculum follows up with central questions: “What can be understood about past cultures by looking under the earth? Clay is a natural resource. What is clay? What is soil? Artists illustrate disasters as well as other environmental changes. Why is this an important role for artists?”