Lynnsey N. Patterson
University of Florida
Master’s in Art Education online
ARE6641: 1F65
Critical Intervention/Personal Voice Action Plan
March 30, 2014
Research Brief
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is located in an area in the North Pacific called the North Pacific Gyre. The gyre is the world’s largest ecosystem at 20 million square kilometers; this also makes it the world’s largest garbage dump (Shields, 2012). In the gyre lies approximately 100 million tons of trash. About 80% of this trash comes from land with the remaining percentage coming from offshore oilrigs, commercial fishing, and cargo ships (Shields, 2012). This is an issue for us as citizens of the Earth because 260 species of sea life are now known to eat plastic (Digital Ocean, 2012). This means plastic has made its way into our food chain.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (2012) has estimated that Americans have generated 243 million tons of trash. According to Gottlieb and McKenna (1994) that is 2kg of trash produced per day per person. That is about 750kg per person a year (Gottlieb, 2004). We obviously have quite a garbage problem.
What we can do to solve this problem is simple: Reduce, reuse, and recycle our trash. Gottlieb et al. (1994) suggests buying food product in larger packages. For example, buying a large box of cereal instead of a bunch of tiny boxes of the same product. This will reduce the amount of cardboard you throw away because the net wait of the food will exceed the net wait of the cardboard. Gottlieb (1994) also recommends making new things out of your trash like creating terrariums out of a soda bottles. Lubiner (2013) suggests other great reuse projects like creating plastic flowers out of water bottles or using drywall as a drawing surface. Shields (2012) believe that we can at the very least make sure our garbage makes it to the wastebasket instead of the floor.
Throughout the years artists like Picasso, Robert Rauschenberg, and Marcel Duchamp have used repurposed trash as materials in their artwork (Faircompanies, 2013). This trend has continued on through today. Recology San Francisco waste disposal facilities, for example, now has an artists in residence program. Artists are invited to the facility to use an on-site studio to create artwork with the garbage they collect at the dump. Artists in residence have 24-hour access and are encouraged to create something out of everything they collect in a little red shopping cart (Faircompanies, 2013). Lauren DiCioccio for instance took inspiriting from the objects she found in the dump and created hand sewn and hand embroidered sculptures. Light bulbs, magazines, and even clocks; DiCioccio’s sculptures showcase objects that have lost their obsolescence in our daily lives (Faircompanies, 2013).
Artist Aurora Robson’s (2008) show The Great Indoors at The Rice Gallery Art Gallery in Houston, Texas used materials straight form The Great Pacific Garbage Patch to make her art. This installation contained 15,000 recycled bottles. She didn’t stop there! Robson’s entire artistic process for this project was routed in striving to be environmentally conscious. She uses non-toxic water based mediums to change the colors of the plastic and outfitted much of her installation with solar powered LED lights. Her installation was 100% powered by solar energy. The concept of all Robson’s work is to take something negative and try to change it into something positive.
This action plan aims to give students the information necessary to make changes in their own lives when it comes to creating waist. They will become aware of our global garbage problem and why it is important for them to get involved. They will learn strategies to reduce, reuse, and recycle their waist and find out how artists have repurposed waist in the past. With trash collected at a venue of their choosing students will create artwork that spread awareness of our trash problem and promotes sustainability in our community.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is located in an area in the North Pacific called the North Pacific Gyre. The gyre is the world’s largest ecosystem at 20 million square kilometers; this also makes it the world’s largest garbage dump (Shields, 2012). In the gyre lies approximately 100 million tons of trash. About 80% of this trash comes from land with the remaining percentage coming from offshore oilrigs, commercial fishing, and cargo ships (Shields, 2012). This is an issue for us as citizens of the Earth because 260 species of sea life are now known to eat plastic (Digital Ocean, 2012). This means plastic has made its way into our food chain.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (2012) has estimated that Americans have generated 243 million tons of trash. According to Gottlieb and McKenna (1994) that is 2kg of trash produced per day per person. That is about 750kg per person a year (Gottlieb, 2004). We obviously have quite a garbage problem.
What we can do to solve this problem is simple: Reduce, reuse, and recycle our trash. Gottlieb et al. (1994) suggests buying food product in larger packages. For example, buying a large box of cereal instead of a bunch of tiny boxes of the same product. This will reduce the amount of cardboard you throw away because the net wait of the food will exceed the net wait of the cardboard. Gottlieb (1994) also recommends making new things out of your trash like creating terrariums out of a soda bottles. Lubiner (2013) suggests other great reuse projects like creating plastic flowers out of water bottles or using drywall as a drawing surface. Shields (2012) believe that we can at the very least make sure our garbage makes it to the wastebasket instead of the floor.
Throughout the years artists like Picasso, Robert Rauschenberg, and Marcel Duchamp have used repurposed trash as materials in their artwork (Faircompanies, 2013). This trend has continued on through today. Recology San Francisco waste disposal facilities, for example, now has an artists in residence program. Artists are invited to the facility to use an on-site studio to create artwork with the garbage they collect at the dump. Artists in residence have 24-hour access and are encouraged to create something out of everything they collect in a little red shopping cart (Faircompanies, 2013). Lauren DiCioccio for instance took inspiriting from the objects she found in the dump and created hand sewn and hand embroidered sculptures. Light bulbs, magazines, and even clocks; DiCioccio’s sculptures showcase objects that have lost their obsolescence in our daily lives (Faircompanies, 2013).
Artist Aurora Robson’s (2008) show The Great Indoors at The Rice Gallery Art Gallery in Houston, Texas used materials straight form The Great Pacific Garbage Patch to make her art. This installation contained 15,000 recycled bottles. She didn’t stop there! Robson’s entire artistic process for this project was routed in striving to be environmentally conscious. She uses non-toxic water based mediums to change the colors of the plastic and outfitted much of her installation with solar powered LED lights. Her installation was 100% powered by solar energy. The concept of all Robson’s work is to take something negative and try to change it into something positive.
This action plan aims to give students the information necessary to make changes in their own lives when it comes to creating waist. They will become aware of our global garbage problem and why it is important for them to get involved. They will learn strategies to reduce, reuse, and recycle their waist and find out how artists have repurposed waist in the past. With trash collected at a venue of their choosing students will create artwork that spread awareness of our trash problem and promotes sustainability in our community.
Action Plan
Essential Idea: Trash
Audience: Jr. High Art Students
Essential Questions:
Where do we see garbage?
How does garbage happen?
Why is it important for us to try and produce less garbage?
What can we do to reduce the amount of garbage we produce?
How do artists use garbage in their art?
Learning Goals:
As a result of this unit students will become aware of the impact human-produced waste has on the environment and why that is important. Students will learn how much waste they personally produce in a given day and discover ways to reduce it. Using this newfound knowledge, students will spread awareness of our garbage problem through their own waste-created artwork.
Activities:
Activity 1- Introduction
1. Watch following videos- Bill Nye Garbage, Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and Plastics in us.
2. Answer and discuss the following essential questions-
· Where do we see garbage?
· How does garbage happen?
· Why is it important for us to try and produce less garbage?
· What can we do to reduce the amount of garbage we produce?
Activity 2- Keep your trash!
1. Students carry around a bag for a day with instructions to keep everything they throw away throughout that day in that bag (except for food and other things that can be a health hazard).
2. Answer following questions about collected garbage-
· What items did you collect in your garbage bag though out the day?
· Where you surprised by the amount of things you threw out?
3. Compare your garbage to a friend’s garbage-
· Did you produce more or less?
· Why do you think that is?
4. Combine all the garbage produced in the class-
· Point out that this pile of garbage was made over the span of one day with only 20-25 people.
· Answer the following questions-
· How would this look after a week, a month, a year?
· What if the entire school was involved?
· How do we produce trash as a school?
· How can we reduce the trash we make as a school?
Activity 3. How do artists use garbage in their art?
1. Watch videos- Trash art, Trash remade as art & tiny shelters at San Francisco Dump, Aurora Robson.
Activity 4. Group project-
1. Collect trash from an establishment of your choosing.
Suggestions- lunch room, core classes, playground, church, gym, office, home, etc.
2. Using the trash you collect create a work of art that promotes sustainability or raises awareness about our garbage problem.
Essential Idea: Trash
Audience: Jr. High Art Students
Essential Questions:
Where do we see garbage?
How does garbage happen?
Why is it important for us to try and produce less garbage?
What can we do to reduce the amount of garbage we produce?
How do artists use garbage in their art?
Learning Goals:
As a result of this unit students will become aware of the impact human-produced waste has on the environment and why that is important. Students will learn how much waste they personally produce in a given day and discover ways to reduce it. Using this newfound knowledge, students will spread awareness of our garbage problem through their own waste-created artwork.
Activities:
Activity 1- Introduction
1. Watch following videos- Bill Nye Garbage, Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and Plastics in us.
2. Answer and discuss the following essential questions-
· Where do we see garbage?
· How does garbage happen?
· Why is it important for us to try and produce less garbage?
· What can we do to reduce the amount of garbage we produce?
Activity 2- Keep your trash!
1. Students carry around a bag for a day with instructions to keep everything they throw away throughout that day in that bag (except for food and other things that can be a health hazard).
2. Answer following questions about collected garbage-
· What items did you collect in your garbage bag though out the day?
· Where you surprised by the amount of things you threw out?
3. Compare your garbage to a friend’s garbage-
· Did you produce more or less?
· Why do you think that is?
4. Combine all the garbage produced in the class-
· Point out that this pile of garbage was made over the span of one day with only 20-25 people.
· Answer the following questions-
· How would this look after a week, a month, a year?
· What if the entire school was involved?
· How do we produce trash as a school?
· How can we reduce the trash we make as a school?
Activity 3. How do artists use garbage in their art?
1. Watch videos- Trash art, Trash remade as art & tiny shelters at San Francisco Dump, Aurora Robson.
Activity 4. Group project-
1. Collect trash from an establishment of your choosing.
Suggestions- lunch room, core classes, playground, church, gym, office, home, etc.
2. Using the trash you collect create a work of art that promotes sustainability or raises awareness about our garbage problem.
References
Art from beyond waste. (1998, June 27). The Economist, 347(8074), 89+. Retrieved from http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/uhic/MagazinesDetailsPage/MagazinesDetailsWindow?failOver&query=&prodId=UHIC&windowstate=normal&contentModules=&mode=view&displayGroupName=Magazines&limiter=&currPage=&disableHighlighting=false&displayGroups=&sortBy=&search_within_results=&p=UHIC&action=e&catId=&activity&scanId=&documentId=GALE%7CA20850741&source=Bookmark&u=gain40375&jsid=3bb8abc5f0e774681e24b84fafe35bf0
Digital Ocean (Producer). (2012).The plastics in us [Vodcast]. Digital Ocean. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLn9V_xwoJ4&list=PLnuVcWWMzkB879Nm1UP72hRCkI-JLdqu_
Faircompanies. (2013, January). Trash remade as art & tiny shelters at san francisco dump. Retrieved March 2014, from Faircompanies: http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/trash-remade-as-art-tiny-shelters-at-san-francisco-dump/
Gottlieb, E., & McKenna, J (Writers&Directors). (1994). Garbage [Television series episode]. In J. McKenna, & E. Gottlieb (Executive producers), Bill Nye the Science Guy. KCTS Television. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEjc0AY6ur0&list=PLnuVcWWMzkB879Nm1UP72hRCkI-JLdqu_
Lubiner, G.,2. (2013). Art with dimension. Arts & Activities, 153(4), 38-38. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&Auth,uid&db=eft&AN=87381492&site=ehost-live
Robson, A (Preformer). (2008, September 19). The great indoors [Film Excerpt]. Rice Gallery. Houston Texas. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_NS1pJQfVc&list=PLnuVcWWMzkB879Nm1UP72hRCkI-JLdqu_
Shields, J. (Writer), & Green, H. (Director). (2012). Great pacific garbage patch [Vodcast series episode]. Scishow. Subbable, LLC. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh6lkv1udb0&list=PLnuVcWWMzkB879Nm1UP72hRCkI-JLdqu_
Tavin, K. M. (2003). Wrestling with angels, searching for ghosts: Toward a critical pedagogy of visual culture. Studies in Art Education, 44(3), 197-213. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1321009
United States Environmental Protection Agency. (2009, September). Land risk management research. Retrieved 2014, from http://www.epa.gov/nrmrl/lrpcd/material_manage.html
Art from beyond waste. (1998, June 27). The Economist, 347(8074), 89+. Retrieved from http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/uhic/MagazinesDetailsPage/MagazinesDetailsWindow?failOver&query=&prodId=UHIC&windowstate=normal&contentModules=&mode=view&displayGroupName=Magazines&limiter=&currPage=&disableHighlighting=false&displayGroups=&sortBy=&search_within_results=&p=UHIC&action=e&catId=&activity&scanId=&documentId=GALE%7CA20850741&source=Bookmark&u=gain40375&jsid=3bb8abc5f0e774681e24b84fafe35bf0
Digital Ocean (Producer). (2012).The plastics in us [Vodcast]. Digital Ocean. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLn9V_xwoJ4&list=PLnuVcWWMzkB879Nm1UP72hRCkI-JLdqu_
Faircompanies. (2013, January). Trash remade as art & tiny shelters at san francisco dump. Retrieved March 2014, from Faircompanies: http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/trash-remade-as-art-tiny-shelters-at-san-francisco-dump/
Gottlieb, E., & McKenna, J (Writers&Directors). (1994). Garbage [Television series episode]. In J. McKenna, & E. Gottlieb (Executive producers), Bill Nye the Science Guy. KCTS Television. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEjc0AY6ur0&list=PLnuVcWWMzkB879Nm1UP72hRCkI-JLdqu_
Lubiner, G.,2. (2013). Art with dimension. Arts & Activities, 153(4), 38-38. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&Auth,uid&db=eft&AN=87381492&site=ehost-live
Robson, A (Preformer). (2008, September 19). The great indoors [Film Excerpt]. Rice Gallery. Houston Texas. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_NS1pJQfVc&list=PLnuVcWWMzkB879Nm1UP72hRCkI-JLdqu_
Shields, J. (Writer), & Green, H. (Director). (2012). Great pacific garbage patch [Vodcast series episode]. Scishow. Subbable, LLC. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh6lkv1udb0&list=PLnuVcWWMzkB879Nm1UP72hRCkI-JLdqu_
Tavin, K. M. (2003). Wrestling with angels, searching for ghosts: Toward a critical pedagogy of visual culture. Studies in Art Education, 44(3), 197-213. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1321009
United States Environmental Protection Agency. (2009, September). Land risk management research. Retrieved 2014, from http://www.epa.gov/nrmrl/lrpcd/material_manage.html