Plein air Visual Art Classroom

School:: John Hopkins Middle School
Subject:: Art
Teacher:: Jenna Hasbrouck
: Sara Black and Kathy Talbot
Students Impacted:: 475
Grade:: 6-8
Date:: October 30, 2023

0% Funded

Only $1,000.00 Needed

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Goal

To create an outdoor classroom where students can benefit from learning from the natural environment. We have a wonderful outdoor space, however it does not have any garden or inspiring scenery, just brick walls. My goal would be to create a beautiful green and inspiring space where students feel excited to create. Pencils and paper are excellent tools for teaching students certain skills, but they don't necessarily provide them with all the qualities they need. For example, it can be tougher to develop high levels of creativity or problem-solving skills when you're learning with just ink on a page. Since I am an art teacher, I would love to be able to provide my students as many opportunities as possible to tap into their creative potential.

What will be done with my students

Students will be able to use the outdoor classroom to create plein air art. Plein-air (French en plein air - «outdoors») is a technique of object depicting with natural light and in natural conditions. Creating art in the garden can help students relax, move around, and reap the benefits of fresh air while creating something beautiful. We learn best from each other and the world around us, making the natural environment the world’s most powerful resource for learning.
Learning outdoors nurtures student’s creativity and supports student’s problem-solving skills. It fosters a more hand-on, active, inquiry-based learning in a real-world setting. Seeing wild creatures, listening to novel sounds, and having new experiences helps break our daily in door classroom routines.

Benefits to my students

Students are driven by curiosity and the natural world stimulates that curiosity. Using nature as a classroom shifts the educational focus from secondary to primary sources. Many educators rely on videos, lectures, and textbooks as teaching tools. Applied-learning through practical projects and first-hand experience allows kids to make connections and stay engaged.
The fact is that we do not all learn the same. Some students may learn better with visuals, others with words, some via physical touch, and others in groups, etc. Today’s classrooms are very text-based and make it harder for other types of learners to remain engaged. The outdoor classrooms allow for an experiential approach that can accommodate and fuse other types of learning styles.

Describe the Students

We teach a wide range of students in our program. We are a title one school, and we offer a art magnet program. Our students have a wide range of diversity including ESE and gifted. Our students are very creative and love a challenge. An outdoor classroom setting with lots of greenery and flowers would help students reach their creative potential.

Budget Narrative

The items listed above would help create the wonderful outdoor classroom I envision our students learning, creating, and fostering environmental observations to help them reach thier creative potential as artists and students.

Items

#	Item	Cost
1	Metal trellis	$600.00
2	Bird bath	$120.00
3	Outdoor sculptures	$75.00
4	Shrubs and flowers	$205.00
	Total:	$1,000.00