Week 3 - Activity Reflection

It's been a long time since I last sketched. I greatly enjoyed it but due to the temperatures of the week There was a mixture of indoor and outdoor observations and sketches. I spent time outside just watching what was going on a few times, some during lunch at school as the students played outside in the snow some from my car in my neighbourhood. I live on a street near a park with a big hill so there is often a lot of foot traffic of kids heading out to sled and dogs going for their walks. When watching I wondered how to sketch some of the living beings with so many of the ones of intrigue to me were in motion. 

The lines of the living things I observed had a roundness to them they felt more fluid to me more soft almost. The angles felt they followed more of a flow as well, without the sharp or abruptness of a right angle. 

In the human made things there was more of a sharp or abruptness to them, following sharp lines, even when there were curves or cylindrical/rounded features there was still a sharpness to them. They felt more "orderly" maybe in a way. Perhaps since the majority of things I focused on that were human-made were stationary and stagnant. 

I think typically there is more soft edges and multi varying angles that are not usually 90 degrees in living things, but human-made have a more sharp angles and lines that contrast the living things. 

I think these patterns exist out of functionality, all of the human made things I sketched were stationary things, they are build not to move (the suspension bridge does sometimes sway in the high winds), where as two of the living things I chose to sketch I found to be challenging due to their frequent movement, the other living thing was a tree and while it is ultimately fairly stationary it does grow, move in the wind, get weighed down in snow so it is also in motion of its own. 

Close observation might be used more for pattern identification and perhaps noticing lines and angles to talk about the different types they see and where they see what kind of lines or what kind of angles, but I feel if only using observation students will need more guidance as to what they are looking to focus on and may not identify these components consciously if just left to observations. Drawing or sketching as a follow up to close observation could lend to students naturally making more connections to the line and angle types present in their observations, and I think would be beneficial as a natural lead to inquiry for them instead of explicitly asking them head of time to look and think of the lines and angles, enabling the conversation to be more reflective. 

An engaging way I think whole-body movement could lend to this experience would be trying to mimic observations through body movement. I find myself often thinking of how to gamify components of our activities (this year I have classes that love to turn things into a game or competition it seems) and I think of them taking time to do observations and sketching and then trying to be their objects to embody their lines, angles, and purpose. If I were to do this for the stacks (Tufts Cove Generating Station) I would stand up tall and have my arms going straight up with my hands bent at the wrist in towards each other palms down and would straighten my wrists and then return to the original position as if from the column created by my arms it was puffing out smoke this would be accompanied by a puffing sound. Could also be a collaborative body of movement done as groups with multiple people, similar to how the students in this weeks video Dancing Euclidean Proofs used collaborative movement between the two of them to turn three propositions from Euclid's Elements into dance. 

I enjoyed this weeks activity and felt it really created a multidisciplinary experience. There was art with sketching, mathematical components of perspective, lines, angles, the connection to the world around us through doing this activity in place and outdoors, science with considering the living and non-living, and linguistic components in the writing of this blog post trying to describe and communicate my observations and experience. After reading Williams' Sustainability Education's Gift: Learning Patterns and Relationships (2016) I found myself with questions around implementation of interdisciplinary activities and how to connect across disciplines while keeping the value of the activity for math but not taking away from the other components. I appreciate that I did this activity after my reading as it helped bridge some connections for me through a direct example and a firsthand experience.  

A picture of my dog enjoying one of the weeks moments of outdoor observations.