Climate Justice with MS95 (in progress)

Part 1

 Day 1: 

Look at cool underwater sculptures, have a conversation about habitats, surviving in an underwater environment - references: Jason deCaires Taylor, Underwater Subway Car project, Underwater Museums

Skill building: Spend the rest of class drawing simple shapes on the smart board and turning them into fish, sea turtles, sharks etc - while students follow along and practice on their own paper - reference: 

Day 2:

Explore how to make sea monsters and myths - talk about their possible motivations, construction, what they might be symbols for, why the ocean might want to protect itself from us (Mami Wata from Africa, Japanese Ningyo, Scottish Blue Men, Samoan Bonito Mermaid, Taino goddess Guabancex and her helper Juracan etc). Show different scary or defensive existing sea creatures alongside mythological creatures. 

Explore drawing sea monsters on black paper with white colored pencils - with me drawing along to their ideas on the board

Day 3:

Look at art showing a flashlight beam to set up combining the previous 2 assignments. Show them how to cut a triangular shape out of the black sea monster paper to look like a flashlight beam, and place it on top of the white fish page, to show the contrast between real and imagined. Add final details.

Part 2

Talk about Climate Justice? Design mini collage mural together about the ocean trying to protect itself (?) and introduce images of sea life made from garbage - we are going to use garbage to make our collage. Have students select which parts of the mural they want to be responsible making stuff for. Assign undecided students parts. This should last between 3-6 sessions.