What's the Matter?

By Joshua McCarry

What happens when a science teacher, a teaching artist, and an 8th grade class learn about phases of matter through dance and theater?

Ideas COLLIDE!  Imaginations EXPAND!  Particles move in different and unpredictable ways.  

Last month, I got the chance to collaborate with DISES Science teacher Mickie Flores to create an original play which follows a water particle on a dizzying adventure through matter- solid, liquid, and gas- not to mention a storm cloud, a melting icicle in New York City and a cup of hot cocoa in Alaska. 

The project, entitled What's the Matter?, integrates the arts with science to form an understanding of the molecular structure of the world around us.  Much of the work was student-led; with the class writing an original script, composing a soundtrack with DISES music teacher Beth Kyzer, and crafting a set made of Wordart.  

Visual art skills and molecules collide as the set is built for What's the Matter?

8th grade musicians at DISES worked with original scores and scripts to accompany a 

water molecule's journey through matter. 

Students demonstrate their understanding of the content using dance to explore the 

movement of liquid particles.  

8th grader Katie Hutchinson displays her artwork for the show.  

Gas molecules expand- and so does a smile!  

Getting Serious About Creativity in the Classroom

Following on my concept of "the whole new mind for a whole new decade" posted earlier this week, Thursday afternoon I helped to lead an Education Leaders Institute (ELI) meeting in Augusta. The focus is to create a team of innovation leaders from around the state to re-design public education--moving it from the WHAT is being taught to the HOW of students learning . . . with a focus on ensuring that creativity, imagination, and innovation are primary learning methods for the new century.

This all hooks together with OHA's Kennedy Center Partners in Education program with our local schools, which helps teachers learn to integrate artistic processes and disciplines into their classroom teaching to advance the creativity of HOW their students are learning literacy, math, and interpersonal skills.

Another key piece of this in Maine is the MLTI laptop program, which in many communities has been a huge gift for how their students are learning and taking off with the innovative skills demanded by our changing economy. Deer Isle hasn't done as well with MLTI as we might, and therefore we are including technology integration as an art form--digital media arts integration--in our Kennedy Center offerings. The importance of the MLTI program to creativity brought Apple's Jim Moulton to our Thursday ELI meeting. Jim is a fantastically innovative thinker, especially around education. Check out this piece he wrote back when he blogged for Edutopia's Spiral Notebook, "It's Time to Get Serious About Creativity in the Classroom." -- Linda