Elementary Studio Lesson
Packing
Products
Polystyrene vs. Cornstarch
Suzanne Starr
My elementary art students recently studied
contemporary artists
working around the
world. They studied the work of professional artists
and communicated with them
via e-mail. We
discovered that
many artists
were creating work to
increase awareness of environmental issues, which
inspired us to invite one of these artists to visit our school.
Our Guest Artist
Through generous funding from the
North Stonington Education Foundation, we had as our guest John Dahlsen, a prize-winning environmental
artist from Australia. He worked with
us for three days at
our school and gave
a public lecture on his
work as well.
In anticipation of his visit, stu-
dents studied
his environ-
mental art
sculptures and
paintings and
created their
own works
inspired by his
enthusiasm.
Geography, writing, literature, and
science were linked with art through
this study.
During his visit, John spoke to
students about the need to appreciate
our world and preserve our environment. A schedule was created so that
all students were able to participate
in creating group artworks with our
honored guest.
Packing materials such as
polystyrene take thousands of
years to decompose, whereas
packing peanuts made from
cornstarch can serve the same
purpose, but dissolve in water.
Polystyrene vs. Cornstarch
Packing materials such as polystyrene
take thousands of years to decompose, whereas packing peanuts made
from cornstarch, which some companies are now using, can serve the
same purpose, but dissolve in water.
Students could see the better choice
clearly as we put each product in
water and watched the polystyrene
simply float while the cornstarch dissolved.
The next challenge was to create
a piece of art that would illustrate
this point to an audience. Working
together, students created two large
