Thinking Environment: Integrating Language and Visual Arts and the Sciences

The Wexner Center and the Franklin Park Conservatory are teaming up to offer a collaborative Professional Development day where you’ll explore methods of blending earth, life, and food sciences with art and writing.

You’ll start the day at the Wexner Center, where you’ll experience the works of artists Alexis Rockman, Paula Hayes, and Elliott Hundley and begin thinking broadly about integrated learning. Participating teachers will investigate methods of writing through art and get an insider’s look at the project-based curriculum of the Wexner Center’s renowned Art & Environment program for teens.

After lunch at the center, you’ll travel to the Franklin Park Conservatory where you’ll take a guided tour through the photography exhibition Hungry Planet: Local Food, Global View. Following the tour, the group will head outdoors to explore the Scotts Miracle-Gro Community Garden Campus. Participants will cook in the Live Fire Cooking Theatre, take a closer look at how soil relates to nutrition, and discover the rainbow of colors found in a garden.

All of these experiences preview regular programs available through the Wexner Center and Franklin Park Conservatory. You’ll gain new perspectives on helping your students to transfer knowledge and ideas across disciplines—and leave with resources and inspiration for a range of lesson plans and field trips.

Contact Diana Gerber at (614) 292-6493 or email edweb@wexarts.org to register.

Click through for complete image caption. Alexis Rockman
LBiosphere: Orchids, 1993
Oil on wood
18 x 24 inches
Collection of Chuck and Joyce Shenk
© Alexis Rockman
Photo courtesy of the artist