Design-A-Leaf

Design-A-Leaf Arts Integration Lesson

In this novel lesson, students will focus in on the details of leaves, gain botanical terminology and then get creative! The aim is to foster observation skills, use collaboration to create a group word bank of descriptive botanical terms and then ultimately the students are invited to design their very own leaf and create its life history.

Students will be able to:

•  Describe parts of leaves using botanical terms

•  Describe flora diversity present within ecosystems

•  Explain the interdependent relationship between plants and other elements of their ecosystem

The images below highlight the energies of the first group of students to participate in this activity. This lesson revolves around core ideas of botany, ecology and art. As a knowledgeable practitioner, I strive to integrate botanic learning through a visual arts medium. This activity is also student-centered as they are given complete freedom to challenge themselves to craft an entirely new leaf or become more knowledgeable about a locally occurring species.

This student chose to draw a Maple leaf they collected, special attention was paid to the shading and texture despite a lack of labeling on those aspects. A few terms have been utilized from the group word bank, the use of general descriptive terms highlights the importance of a diverse word bank in order to describe certain aspects of the leaf. More specific vocabulary will also be helpful when using field guides and will be incorporated into future lessons. 

This piece highlights the creative freedom available to students in designing and naming their own leaf. This student took creative control and invented unique leaves during a shortened lesson, the names tell some of the life history of the leaves yet without labels some information is lost without explanation. This speaks to the necessity of a longer lesson time frame as well as checking for understanding on instructions for the annotated drawing.

This is the pre-lesson planning board, with a draft of a botanical terminology word bank and annotated leaf drawing. This was a helpful planning tool and may be used in a modified version in future lessons, perhaps as a group annotated drawing to learn key basic terms before transitioning to individual work. Producing this sort of mindmap before the lesson served to help me visualize the flow of the lesson and which terminology to highlight with the students.