In this phase you will
- Creatively reflect on and express your understanding of an environment and the influence of people on this environment
- Compare and contrast your own and others’ understandings of environmental challenges and futures
- Contribute to class understandings of anthropogenic challenges and sustainable practices, and express your attitudes towards futures
Quick links
You will need
- Artmaking materials – whatever you have available! Pencils, paint, newspapers or magazines for collage, paper, playdough, and digital options will all work
- Student journals
- Phase 1 PowerPoint
Key vocabulary
Environment
Elements of art
Pollution
Systems/Ecosystems
Sustainable practices
Futures
Gallery
Anthropogenic
Activities
Acknowledging Country
- Acknowledge the Country that your school is on and pay respects to the Traditional Owners. Use the AIATSIS Map of Indigenous Australia to see whose Country you are on and as a visual reminder of the richness and diversity of First Nations peoples in Australia.
Examples
Warming-up
- As a class, brainstorm the meaning of environment. Brainstorm your ideas on popsicle sticks, small stones, or leaves to begin your collection of Sustainability Sticks (see Warm-up Activities for details).
Visually representing an environment
- Individually, create a visual artwork of an environment. These artworks could be:
- Drawn
- Painted
- Collaged
- Digital
- Something else entirely! However, you should be able to carry your artwork around.
- Show your artwork to a partner. Spend one minute observing your partner’s artwork. What do you notice about it? Consider:
- What ideas about the environment are expressed?
- What is valued in this environment?
- Whose viewpoint(s) are represented?
- What do you think the artist’s intention is?
- Take it in turns to share what you notice about your partner’s artwork. Then share the intentions and ideas expressed through your own artwork.
Visually representing an environment
What ideas about the environment are expressed in these students’ artworks? What is valued? Whose viewpoints are represented? What are the artists’ intentions?
Comparing and contrasting
- As a class, pick up your artworks and hold them in front of you facing outwards. Walk around the room slowly, looking at other people’s artworks.
- Without talking, find people whose artworks have something in common with your own. These similarities might be…
- Material (what you have chosen to create your artwork from)
- Technical (the processes you have used to create your artwork)
- Visual conventions (how you have combined elements of art such as line, shape, colour, tone, texture, and form)
- Place-based (the type of environment you have represented)
- Conceptual/thematic (how you have represented the environment)
- Form groups of 3-5 people. As a group, reflect on and discuss how your artworks represent:
- Humans’ relationship(s) to the environment
- The environment’s wellbeing (clean/healthy, polluted/threatened, or a combination)
- Environmental challenges
- Sustainable practices
- Ecosystems
- Futures
- Using a Venn diagram with each circle representing one person, map out the similarities and differences between your artworks.
- What are the shared themes (ideas, beliefs, values, and viewpoints)?
- What makes each person’s viewpoint/artwork unique?
Comparing and contrasting
What similarities and differences do you notice between Atomic Bomb, Circle of Life, and Jellyfish?
Communicating ideas
- Create a group freezeframe representing one or more of the shared ideas/themes. Place your artworks somewhere in the freezeframe (hold them, put them on the ground, pin to the wall behind you, etc.). You are creating a gallery with your bodies as part of the exhibition.
- Share the gallery with the rest of the class. As each group holds their freezeframe, other members of the class comment on what they notice about the ideas, beliefs, values, and viewpoints being expressed. Pay attention to how the gallery (your bodies and the artworks together) helps to communicate the theme. The performing group then responds to the audience’s views and share their artistic intentions.
Communicating ideas
This freezeframe shows students at the ResourceSmart Schools Awards representing an environmental challenge. What do you notice about the ideas, beliefs, values, and viewpoints being expressed?
Discussing and reflecting
- As a class, discuss your existing knowledge of anthropogenic challenges and sustainable practices, and your attitudes towards futures. Map your knowledge, attitudes, thoughts, and wonderings on a class chart that you can refer to throughout this program.
- Individually, reflect in your journals on your experiences from Phase 1. Your reflections can be written, drawn, recorded, or any other medium that suits. You might like to reflect on:
- Three emotions that you are currently feeling.
- Two thoughts and/or questions that are running through your head.
- One action that you would like to take.
Outcomes (Victorian Curriculum)
| LEARNING AREA | Strand | Levels 5 and 6 | Levels 7 and 8 | Levels 9 and 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| THE ARTS Although these descriptors are based in the Visual Arts Curriculum, they are similar to other Arts learning areas | Explore and Express Ideas Present and Perform Respond and Interpret | Create and display artworks that express different ideas and beliefs (VCAVAE029) (VCAVAP031) Identify and describe how ideas are expressed in different artworks (VCAVAR032) | Explore, develop, and express themes, concepts, and ideas through artworks (VCAVAE033) (VCAVAP037) Analyse how artists’ ideas and viewpoints are expressed and viewed by audiences (VCAVAR038) | Conceptualise, plan and design artworks that express ideas, concepts, and artistic intentions (VCAVAV043) (VCAVAP044) Analyse and interpret different artists’ forms of expression, intentions, and viewpoints (VCAVAR045) |
| SCIENCE | Science Understanding | Identify how the growth and survival of living things are affected by their environment (VCSSU075) | Recognise how interactions between organisms can be affected by human activity (VCSSU093) | Investigate how ecosystems change as a result of environmental change (VCSSU121) |
| THE HUMANITIES: Geography | Geographical Knowledge | Identify and categorise environmental and human influences on places and management of spaces (VCGGK096) | Investigate human causes of land degradation, effects on landscape quality, and implications for places (VCGGK119) | Critique effects of people’s choices on places and implications for the future of these places (VCGGK143) |
| TECHNOLOGIES: Design and Technology | Technologies and Society | Investigate and consider possible futures (VCDSTS033) | Examine and prioritise preferred futures (VCDSTS043) | Critically analyse factors for preferred futures (VCDSTS054) |
| CAPABILITIES: Personal and Social Capability | Social Awareness and Management | Undertake various team roles and contribute to group tasks (VCPSCSO032) | Accept responsibility as a team member and leader and support other team members (VCPSCSO041) | Evaluate own and others’ contributions and provide useful feedback to peers (VCPSCSO050) |