March 9, 2009
Voices from the field: Arizona middle school students blend aesthetics and technology to create art installations
The expressive arts--visual art, music, and movement--are a natural and necessary part of all children's lives. In an innovative after-school program, led by Arizona State University (ASU) collaborators from the Mary Lou Fulton College of Education, Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering, the Global Institute of Sustainability, the ASU Mars Outreach program, and community-based partners, middle school children in Mesa Public Schools unleash their creative expression using found objects, lego bricks, light, touch, and sound sensors, and a programmable unit known as the Playful Invention Company (PICO) Cricket. As one of many inter-disciplinary explorations in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields, seventh and eighth grade students in Carson, Mesa, Powell, and Smith Junior High Schools in the Mesa Public Schools blend aesthetics and technology to create art installations, toys, and other objects that involve art, music, and movement.
In a learning experience that brings software programming, engineering design, and artistic design together, participants created chain reactions or Rube Goldberg Machines. For inspiration, students watched the incredible Honda Accord commercial, "Cog" created in 2003 by a United Kingdom design firm. (Watch the Cog and read a Wikipedia entry about the Cog.)
Students explored electrical circuits by building their own circuits using LEDs, switches, buzzers, battery packs, conductors, and so on ultimately building their own switches. This exploration led to the creation of a chain reaction that allowed children to creatively, yet collectively experience the flow of action from one table to another in their classroom. Along the way students experienced for themselves how to integrate a variety of objects and materials including conducting and non-conducting materials, technologies such as sound sensors in their designs.
In this clip, seventh grade students in an after-school program create art installations using found objects and PICO (Play Invention Company) Cricket Kits that have Lego-like parts, a programmable unit — the Cricket, and sound, touch, and light sensors.
Learning through Engineering Design and Practice: Using our Human Capital for an Equitable Future - 5:01
Credits:
Video Filming: David Luna, Director of Educational Television, and the Media Center team, Mesa Public Schools, Mesa, AZ
Production: Inside ITEST is a production of WGBH Educational Foundation in collaboration with The ITEST Learning Resource Center at Education Development Center, Inc., Newton, MA
The National Science Foundation sponsored Learning Resource Center for Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) has featured this and other video clips from ITEST programs around the nation. See Voices from the field: Inside ITEST.
Contact: Tirupalavanam G. Ganesh, is the principal investigator of the National Science Foundation funded K-12 outreach and research award "Learning through Engineering Design and Practice." He is an assistant dean for information systems at the Mary Lou Fulton College of Education.