BLUEMiND – ArtsEd4All

May 15, 2019September 3, 2019 artsed4all Family Art Workshop

“Under the Sea” Art Night & Welcome Tea at Dianne Feinstein Elementary School

The DFES community is invited to ART NIGHT ~ Please join us and help to welcome new incoming Kindergarten families to Dianne Feinstein ES with an “UNDER THE SEA” WELCOME TEA! Around the school, you’ll find an OCEAN OF ART created by students working with art teachers Crystal Hermann, Sharon Collins, Scott Perry and Suzie Berndt.

Enjoy a nice cup of tea and treats and offer a neighborly hello to the incoming K families in the Octopus’ Garden in the lobby. Help to build a coral reef with Ms. Crystal in the Art Room! Swim on down to the MPR and enjoy fun activities for the whole family!

ALL TOGETHER NOW!

In the DFES MPR, you can learn more about the newest Mission Blue hope spot — your heart’s desire in your own backyard — with DOER Marine, quality maker of submarines! DOER, aka Deep Ocean Exploration and Research, was founded in 1992 by Dr. Sylvia Earle. Today, the DOER tradition is upheld by subsea specialists Liz Taylor and Ian Griffith.

We invite you to share your wild ideas of how to repurpose the giant steel case that transported DFES mascot Edwin the Panda across the Pacific from China with DOER!

Kid Speaks for Parks founder Robbie Bond and DFES Principal Chang hang loose with Edwin the Panda. During his May 8th presentation to the fourth and fifth graders at DFES, Robbie shared a quote from his mentor, master navigator Nainoa Thompson, “You can’t protect things that you don’t understand, and you won’t protect them, if you don’t care.” Robbie, who recently moved to Nevada from Hawaii, shared his love for the Green and Blues, and encourages all students who have all received an Every Kid in A Park pass to enjoy and protect their National Parks and National Monuments.

The Hawaiians have a saying, “He wa’a he moku, he moku he wa’a,” which translates as “the canoe is an island, and the island is a canoe.”

THE WAYFINDER is an immersive 360 film that follows the story of a real-life “Moana” – a young Hawaiian who dreams of sailing in the wake of her ancestors. As Kamai learns how to guide a canoe using the ancient art of wayfinding, she discovers tools that will help her guide the future of her islands – and navigate the voyage of her life. Catch a VR screening of The Wayfinder from from 5:00pm to 5:50pm in the MPR.

Filmmaker Gail Evenari founded Maiden Voyage Productions in 1994 with the production of Wayfinders: A Pacific Odyssey, an award-winning PBS documentary funded by National Endowment for the Humanities, which chronicles the history and renaissance of Polynesian voyaging and navigation. In 2012, MVP launched World Wise Adventures, introducing multicultural perspectives to teens through meaningful interactions with diverse global communities. World Wise Interactive combines Virtual Reality immersive experiences with an interactive curriculum to raise young people’s awareness of diverse cultures and critical global issues – inspire them to action.

THE ALOHA UKE SQUAD is a ukulele ensemble bringing joy through music and the aloha spirit. We are thrilled that they are coming to play at Art Night. The Aloha Uke Squad sing-a-long takes place in the MPR, with brief introductions at 5:50pm and the singalong beginning at 6:00pm.

“There’s something about the ukulele that just makes you smile. It makes you let your guard down. It brings out the child in all of us.” — Jake Shimabukuro

Download the Aloha Uke Squad JAM PACKET:

dfes-jam-packet-ver20190509 Download

October 10, 2016October 13, 2016 artsed4all Art & the Environment, Arts Education, STEAM, Technology, Visual Arts

Ned Kahn’s Negev Wheel @ CJM

Rooftop Alternative School extends and enriches the learning opportunities in the classroom by connecting our students to the rich cultural life of the City. “Art Is @ The Center,” Rooftop’s art study theme for 2016-2017 reflects on Rooftop’s location at the geographic center of San Francisco. While the school began the year’s art study with a exploration of mindfulness through the form of the mandala, Kahn’s Negev Wheel invites viewers to take art and mindfulness for a spin through sculpture. To quote Janine Okmin, Associate Director of Education at Contemporary Jewish Museum, “In this gallery, art is literally at the center…” Using sand from the Negev Desert, “blown by the wind for centuries,” Negev Wheel invites a closer look at the invisible forces of rotation and gravity that are constantly at work in nature.

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“In his work Negev Wheel, Bay Area artist Ned Kahn explores these metaphors by reenacting the historical drama of tumbling desert sand, contained inside a circular spinning wheel. If a grain of sand is the vulnerable individual, a mountain of sand can have tremendous aggregate power. Thus in the context of The Contemporary Jewish Museum, Kahn’s work raises essential Jewish questions about building a reality of meaning, community, and generation.”

— http://www.thecjm.org/on-view/currently/negev-wheel-ned-kahn/about

Download: CJM “Negev Wheel” PD Workshop Agenda cjm-pd-agenda-for-negev-wheel

CJM PD Agenda for Negev Wheel

A closer look at the movement of the sand mixture in the interactive sculpture that visitors set into motion. Kahn experimented with three variables to create Negev Wheel: tilt (of the wheel), speed (of the spinning), and viscosity (fluidity of the sand).

Contemporary Jewish Museum “Negev Wheel” Exhibition Resource: http://www.thecjm.org/storage/documents/education/2016/Ned_Kahn_Teacher_Resource.pdf

This resource uses quotes, artist interviews, discussion questions, and suggested activities to examine Ned Kahn: Negev Wheel through five thematic lenses: natural forces; tinkering, engineering, and the artistic process; mindfulness; Jewish content; and art as metaphor. This guide is useful for classroom teachers or anyone interested in a deeper exploration of Ned Kahn: Negev Wheel.

In Conversation With Ned Kahn from The Contemporary Jewish Museum on Vimeo.

Ned Kahn (b. 1960, Connecticut) is an environmental artist and sculptor who creates installation works that explore, mimic, and play with forces and phenomena found in nature. Kahn’s artworks, at the intersection of art and science, invite audiences to immerse themselves into natural elements such as tornadoes, fog, clouds, and wind currents—or turbulences, as he calls them. A Bay Area resident for over twenty years, his hybrid work, as a synthesis of nature, art, and technology, makes the invisible forces of nature suddenly visible to the viewers’ eyes. http://nedkahn.com/

Watch video artist Benjy Young’s video poem about the entire process of making the artwork; from the inspiration and research of the artist to the finished design of the “Negev Wheel” installed at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. Todd Barricklow and his Ned Kahn Studios crew along with Justin Limoges and the Museum’s crew assemble the artwork so Ned can coax the exact perpetual avalanche of Negev sand for his show.

Ned Kahn: Negev Wheel from Benjy Young on Vimeo.

September 11, 2016September 12, 2016 artsed4all Arts Education, Music, Technology, Visual Arts

MAKE YOUR MARK! International Dot Day @ Rooftop School

September 15th marks the anniversary of the publication of best-selling author/illustrator Peter H. Reynolds’ The Dot, a “story book for all ages.”

Author Peter Reynolds told School Library Journal. “I pinch myself, thinking that four decades ago I was being told to stop drawing in my classes and pay attention, and here we are in 2016 with a school sanctioned day to celebrate creativity.”

“The Dot more than anything celebrates the power of creative teaching,” Reynolds explains. “Despite the test-centric world we live in, creative teachers know how to find those aha moments — much the same way that my 7th grade math teacher Mr. Matson ‘connected the dots’ between math and art, which changed my life.” To honor that moment, Reynolds dedicated The Dot to Mr. Matson.

Rooftop School is joining the The Dot Club fun & inviting you to read-along, draw-along, and even sing-along!

To get things started, Rooftop librarian Tamra Marshall will be reading THE DOT with all K-2 classes.

#DOTDAY LIVESTREAM

On Tuesday, September 13 at 10am, we’re connecting the dots via Skype and Discovery Education in the Burnett MPR. #CelebrateWithDE

Author Peter H. Reynolds travels to the place where Dot Day began with Dot Day founder Terry Shay, a teacher at North Tama School in Traer, Iowa. Reynolds, Shay, and the students of North Tama will come together to celebrate creativity, courage, and collaboration on the 7th Annual International Dot Day. http://www.discoveryeducation.com/Events/monthly-themes/dot-day-2016.cfm

#ArtIsAtTheCenter: DOT CENTRAL

Be sure to sign your work and share your dot art on International #DotDay – Thursday, September 15, 2016! Let’s fill “Dot Central” – aka the Burnett MPR – with some fresh art!

THE PALE BLUE DOT & COASTAL CLEANUP DAY

Then, help us to take care of the most important dot of all — “The Pale Blue” Dot! In celebration of Coastal Cleanup Day 2016, Rooftop School will hold a Schoolyard Cleanup on Friday, September 16.

Pale Blue Dot from ORDER Productions on Vimeo.

The trash gathered at school will be weighed and our information will be entered into the official International Coastal Cleanup Day database.

WHAT IS COASTAL CLEANUP DAY?

Every year, on the third Saturday in September, people join together at sites all over California to take part in the State’s largest volunteer event, California Coastal Cleanup Day. In 2015, more than 68,000 volunteers removed nearly 1,143,000 pounds of trash and recyclables from California’s beaches, lakes, and waterways.

Families, friends, coworkers, scout troops, school groups, service clubs, and individuals come together to celebrate and share their appreciation of California’s fabulous coast and waterways. The event is part of the International Coastal Cleanup, organized by the Ocean Conservancy, which is the largest volunteer event on the planet!

California Coastal Cleanup Day 2016 is Saturday, September 17, 2016

positive-impact-blue-marbles — “Positive Impact” – Teaching the World To “Live Blue” https://issuu.com/positiveimpactmagazine/docs/full_pim_magazine_book_2012_digital/38?e=2938531/2717353

December 6, 2015December 6, 2015 artsed4all Art & the Environment, STEAM, Technology, Uncategorized

Follow the Water

“When I was orbiting Earth in the space shuttle, I could float over to a window and gaze down at the delicate white clouds, brilliant orange deserts, and sparkling blue water of the planet below. I could see the coral reefs in the oceans, fertile farmlands in the valleys, and twinkling city lights beneath the clouds. Even from space, it is obvious that Earth is a living planet.” — Dr. Sally Ride

Sally Ride EarthKAM is a NASA educational outreach program that enables students, teachers, and the public to learn about Earth from the unique perspective of space. The project was initiated by Dr. Sally Ride, America’s first woman in space. The EarthKAM camera was first operated on the International Space Station (ISS) on Expedition 1 in 2001. Sally Ride died in 2012, and in 2013, NASA renamed the program Sally Ride EarthKAM. The Sally Ride EarthKAM camera remains a permanent payload on the ISS, supporting about four missions annually. EarthKAM’s Mission 50 took place between November 10-13, and students around the world were able to request images of specific locations on Earth.

NASA has a familiar adage: Follow The Water, for where there is water, there is life. For Mission 50, Rooftop School’s fourth graders made a list of the places where they would like to see water.

As Sally Ride noted, “The view of Earth is spectacular.”

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From November 30 to December 11, 2015 COP21, also known as the 2015 Paris Climate Conference, will brings the world together with hopes of achieving a legally binding and universal agreement on climate, with the aim of keeping global warming below 2°C.

The Association of Space Explorers reached out to their fellow astronauts to pass on a simple message of solidarity, hope and collaboration to combat climate change and reach our political leaders during such a crucial time.

July 21, 2014August 27, 2014 artsed4all Art & the Environment

Our Favorite Things

We are very excited to participate in the EECapacity Project in collaboration with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

This Professional Learning Community (PLC) is exploring approaches used by conservation NGOs, faith-based groups, urban community outreach organizations, zoos, community arts organizations, National Parks, and other recreation and education organizations to engage the growing Latino/Hispanic population in environmental learning experiences.

For Show and Tell, we were asked to share our favorite resource related to engaging Latino/Hispanic audiences.

Our favorite resource is a little round ball of blue glass…

Nuestro recurso favorito es una pequeña bola redonda de cristal azul …

“The Blue Marble” is the name of this famous photograph of the Earth taken by the Apollo 17 astronauts. “La Canica Azul” es el nombre de esta famosa fotografía de la Tierra tomada por los astronautas del Apolo 17.

The Blue Marble Project is a gratitude project that helps people of all ages and cultures share their love for the Earth.

El Blue Marble Project es un proyecto de la gratitud que ayuda a personas de todas las edades y culturas comparten su amor por la Tierra.

We have used this small object to help children to begin seeing themselves as protectors of the planet.

Hemos utilizar este pequeño objeto de ayudar a los niños a empezar a verse a sí mismos como protectores del planeta.

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We began playing The Blue Game with a single blue marble.

Empezamos a jugar el juego azul con una sola canica azul.

To date, we have shared thousands of Blue Marbles with people all over the world.

Hasta la fecha, hemos compartido Miles de azules Mármoles con gente de todo el mundo.

They have traveled to every continent on the planet, helping to remind us that we are all connected.

Han viajado viaja a todos los continentes del planeta, lo que ayuda a recordarnos que todos estamos conectados.

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The rules for The Blue Game are very simple, and yet, there are so many ways that people can play.

Las reglas para el juego azul son muy simples, y sin embargo, hay muchas maneras en que la gente puede jugar.

The important thing is to begin, and you will soon see how little things can make a big difference.

Lo importante es empezar, y pronto verás cómo pequeñas cosas pueden hacer una gran diferencia.

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ViVAZUL-El Salvador - 200,000 eggs & 170,000 baby turtles

Alejandro Juvenile rescue — Alejandro rescues a juvenile sea turtle

Alejandro's Blue Marble — Alejandro’s Blue Marble. Photo by Neil Ever Osborne.

June 2, 2012April 3, 2014 artsed4all Art & the Environment

The Blue Marble Project

Rooftop Alternative K-8 School is traveling all over our Wonderful World with a little help from our friends, families and Dr. Wallace J. Nichols’ Blue Marble Project. http://www.bluemarbles.org

Help us to make the world a little smaller, as we teach our students how to help our Ocean Planet.

Student in the computer lab are learning about geography, mapping, ocean conservation and more, through The Blue Marble Project. Our friends are helping by sharing their adventures through photographs and correspondence.

When you get your Blue Marble, you’ll know what to do! Think about what the ocean means to you, and what you can do to live like you love the ocean. Share your thoughts and adventures with your friends at Rooftop. When you are ready, pass your Blue Marble on to someone new, with the instructions that they should do the same.