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Eastern Greene teacher thinks 'outside the box' with project
EASTERN HEIGHTS -- Lurking in "Dinosaur Alley" -- located between the gym and the music room at Eastern Greene Elementary School -- are some carefully painted pre-historic creatures like Elasmosaurus, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Allosaurus, Ichthyosaurus, Diplodocus, Edmontonia, Marasuchus, Tyrannosauroids or some of their now extinct dinosaur buddies.
The impressive artwork is the creation of Jeremiah Glass' fourth-grade class.
It's now proudly displayed in the hallway and will be for another week or so.
The 27 students in his class turned this into more than a simple art display.
"When I design a lesson series I try to make it as multi-functional as possible. So I try to go through a hands-on approach and to get things where the kids can really invest their imagination and stress their capabilities of innovation," Glass explained. "This project took us about a month to complete. We listed all of the different steps that we went through and only then did the kids really begin to realize how much learning had taken place.
"They were under the notion that they were just having fun and being creative and when they saw the skills they were learning they were very proud. I try to always pick a topic that they can all get excited and invested in and dinosaurs really seemed to do the trick."
This year's nine creations that were put together by three-student teams are large -- measuring 10 feet tall and 8 feet wide.
They were first drawn then painted.
"Everything that we went through and put together the kids had to scientifically justify the inclusion. Every flower, every color, everything about it they had to go through and say how it functioned to nature or had to establish some kind of scientific rationale for what they were doing," Glass stated. "They had to work out a design construct for each dinosaur. As a group they got together and discussed what attributes to include in their final draft so they had to do a lot of discussion and conversation about things and make good, valid scientific decisions."
The completed project covers the length of the hallway walls and even one art form is mounted on the ceiling.
The students and teacher talked about textures and color tones to make sure the finished project turned out realistic.
The other students seem to love the new hall display.
"The best thing about this is to watch a kindergarten come and put their hand on here," Glass said, putting his own hand on one of the paintings. "And they just get wide-eyed. One of the things about creating a museum display like this is having it be as interactive as possible. To be able to connect to a display or to an idea and making it as tangible as possible is critical."
The teacher pointed out that a key component of the display are life-size footprints from the prehistoric creatures that are painted on a separate drawing and situated right next to the featured dinosaur.
Students are encouraged to touch them and compare their size to their own hands.
"We have the components that we would not necessarily like them to touch, but we have an area where they can and we explicitly say 'hey please come up and touch this.' Each of the footprints are (drawn) to scale," Glass said. "Giving them that permission (to touch) really works with the kids."
There is also a display halfway down the hall that outlines the project steps and highlights the 30 actual state-based academic standards that were studied in the project in mathematics, science and art.
Glass, who's in his third year on the teaching staff at Eastern Greene school, said this kind of project is a perfect fit for his hand-on approach to learning.
"I use the textbook sometimes, but I try to make big projects like this the mainstay of my curriculum," the Muncie native said. "The wealth of skills that they learned in here and the explicit learning that went along with it is just wonderful to sit back and watch. To learn through the school's academics and also through the school's empirical wisdom."
Student Michelle Hatfield said she really enjoyed the dinosaur project and she added, "We learned how to work together."
The nine student teams included:
* Farrah Young, Charlotte Butler and Victoria Valentine
* Wyatt Birch, Parker Gillespie and Nicholas Mobley
* Aaliyah Priddy, Shiwana Walton and Aarina Case
* Brandon Sciscoe, Blayne Campell and KeYanna Moore
*Gavin Johnson, Adam Hudson and Nicholas Whaley
* Dalton Workman, Michelle Hatfield and BreAnna Axsom
* Seth Ford, Garrett Sipg and Colt Hewins
* Amanda Johnson, Gabi Maldonado and Karah Massey
* Andy Drummond, Abe Piedmont and C.T. Thompson.