Project Library
Impactful, & easy-to-implement projects that embrace student choice
Where do we go from here? Landing Page
Students work in groups to create a fictional town, but one which is based off of a real region in the United States. They learn about climate change, and are able to explore and think about how communities adapt and build resilience, as well as environmental justice through the fictional town that they are collectively developing.
For the concluding Key Idea, students move away from the fictional town and apply what they learned to their real-life community. They learn about climate activists and strategize ways that they can use art to bring attention to climate threats that will effect their real-life community.
Tiny Still Life Landing Page
Students build a small sculpture of their choice from recycled materials, then draw it using observation skills on large paper. They finish with paint.
The Secret Language of Objects Project Landing Page
Students learn how objects can represent an idea, or serve as symbols. They use symbols to create an artwork that can tell a story.
The Introspective Artist Landing Page
This issue is devoted to teaching students how to explore and better understand their experiences through a highly-personal art practice.
As they work through this unit they’ll become skillful in using art as a tool to process what they experience, as well as better understand their unique emotional response to events.
Symbol & Self Landing Page
Students learn to recognize shapes and types of lines as they design and draw their own superheroes.
Superheroes Project Landing Page
Students learn to recognize shapes and types of lines as they design and draw their own superheroes.
Rainforest Creature Marionettes Project Landing Page
Students learn about animal defense mechanisms and invent an animal ideally suited to live in the rainforest. They create a marionette puppet of their invention.
Persian Miniatures Landing Page
Students learn about Persian Miniatures. They then create an illustration of a story or poem using an engraving technique.
Near & Far Project Landing Page
Student artists create a landscape of somewhere they have always wanted to see and visit (older students use ‘Google Maps’ to virtually visit, younger students create a collaged book of ideas). They then learn about how color can change the ‘mood’ of a painting.
Mexican Alebrije Landing Page
Students learn about the history and creation of a Mexican folk art called Alebrije. Students create their own imaginary creatures. There is an emphasis on color choices and texture.
Me & My Monster Project Landing Page
Students learn about visual poetry, create a poem about a monster helper, draw a self-portrait, and rearrange their poems in a visual way with the self-portrait.
Learning about Native American Totem Animals Landing Page
Students learn about the importance of animals to Indigenous people. They create a self-portrait that uses animals to symbolize themselves and, if they wish, their family.
Heroes Among Us
In this issue, Students enroll in ‘hero training’. Throughout the first three key ideas they are able to earn badges for different ‘heroic habits’. For a final prompt, they choose a member from their community that is an exemplar of at least one of the heroic habits they have studied, and they create a custom badge for them
Fashion & Culture Project Landing Page
Our clothing choices are wrapped up in our culture, heritage, history, as well as affected by current societal ideas and trends. In this unit, students learn about and explore the visual, symbolic, language of fashion.
Enchanted Lands Project Landing Page
Students learn about compositional elements as they create a magical setting that could host fairy tales.
Embracing Challenges Project Landing Page
Students learn about artists who faced different mental and physical challenges, and complete a recycled sculpture by getting their own series of challenges.
Dream House Project Landing Page
Students build their ‘dream house’ then draw it using observation drawing.
Designing the Zodiac Project Landing Page
Students learn about constellations across many different cultures and create their own constellation and write their own origin story.
Create-a-Creature Landing Page
Students learn about hybrid creatures in mythology, then create their own.
Community Connection Landing Page
After defining their community, students undertake a series of prompts that are designed to help them understand and connect more deeply with other members of their community. As students work, they broaden their definition of community away from being inhabitants of the same physical space to encompass aspects of the communities shared experience, background, or values.
Close Encounters Project Landing Page
Students study the woman artist ‘Georgia O’Keeffe’. They bring in objects that are special to them and draw them, closely considering their own compositions as they work.
Artist, Explorer, Scientist Landing Page
Students learn John Audubon & scientific drawing. They choose an animal, research it, and draw an accurate picture in it’s habitat.
Art & Advocacy Project Landing Page
Students learn about how designers can advocate through design by exploring water advocacy groups; they choose a contemporary topic that they care about and design a persuasive poster about it.
Around the Neighborhood Project Landing Page
Students learn about Jacob Lawrence and the Harlem Renaissance. They make a collage that depicts their own neighborhood, with a focus on color.
Anthropomorphic Animals Landing Page
Students choose an animal, draw it realistically from photographs, and then use the background to show what human traits the animal has come to represent.
America is Hard to See Landing Page
In this issue, student look at different ways American artists explore community, culture, and identity, underscoring the difficulty of neatly defining the country’s ethos and inhabitants.
A Toy’s Story Landing Page
Students depict where their toys go in their imagination.
A Portrait in Time Landing Page
Essential Question: How do artists create art that communicates their experience?
Students work through a series of prompts designed to help them understand the different ways that artists experience and record personal experiences.
A Place in Space Landing Page
In this issue, students will look at and collectively design a ‘city’ that addresses a particular challenge/issue. They then look internally to design and build a room that reflects the story of themselves that they wish to share.