Ecoconcepts Illustrated: Art Projects to Understand Environmental Science Vocabulary
Summary
The purpose of this activity is for students new to the fields of Environmental Science and Ecology to learn some fundamental vocabulary of these Sciences in an interactive and creative way in contrast to rote memorization.
Learning Goals
They will learn fundamental vocabulary introduced in three chapters of our environmental science textbook, by having individuals illustrate one concept randomly assigned by the instructor,and present each of these illustration to the rest of the class. The illustrations are not to be labelled, so that students who view the presentation are asked to guess each one based on their reading and their vocabulary list of all terms assigned for this exercise. This activity encourages students to analyze how to illustrate the concept to communicate it to other students, yet to leave out the labeling so the other students will be required to analyze the illustrations to imagine what the illustrator is communicating. They are creating 2 dimensional models of abstract concepts.
Context for Use
This is one of several assignments that focuses on alternate methods of learning in addition to reading and testing in order to reach different types of learners. It is also designed to shake up passive note taking and memorization model of learning of basic scientific vocabulary.