firstdays

Give each student an acorn or maple seed- how does this become a mighty tree? Where does the 'stuff' in the tree come from? How would you test your theory?

Activity-A different point of view-jm

Activity: Observation of Shell-jm

Activity-Enlightening your senses-jm

Important to observe what is really there.

Biology is more than book-facts- read quote from Charles Dickens

"...everybody can draw, but not everybody’s going to make fine art. It’s a discipline that should be taught as writing is taught. It’s a discipline. And it isn’t about necessarily even expressing yourself. It’s just about learning to really concentrate on something. Learning to really look and ask questions, hard questions. That’s to me what drawing is about. And sometimes you make something that stands on its own ..."

"...Seeing necessitates looking and thinking. When I teach drawing, I must constantly remind my students to distinguish between what they see and what they think they see. Thinking — at least the lazy, day-to-day kind of thinking — often gets in the way of the drawing process, which requires a stubborn curiosity about why things look they way they do. Nothing can be intelligently or intelligibly recorded on a piece of paper unless true seeing occurs: first on the part of the person making the picture, and then on the part of the person reading it.

I honestly think all of us would be better off if everyone took the time to draw, if for no other reason than the better we see, the more inevitable curiosity becomes. Lack of curiosity is the first step towards visual illiteracy — and by that I mean not really seeing what is going on around us. On one level, avoidance of informed looking and thinking results merely in inappropriate architecture, endless rows of neon signs, advertising agencies, political-marketing consultants, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Barbie dolls, and Hallmark cards — in general, mediocrity. But on another, much deeper level, it threatens to turn us into isolated, insensitive, incapable, and ultimately helpless victims of a world of increasing complexity and decreasing humanity..."

- David Macaulay, Author and artist

Classroom Rules and Procedures

Outline of course

What do you want to learn?

Safety Rules

Homework Policy;

Assessment and Grading

Review basic rules for the class-behavior, bathroom, lateness, what is expected. Disruptive students will be removed from class. Will receive 0 for missed classwork unless made up within one week.