|
Interdisciplinary Unit with Art
and Library
What is farming like in Portsmouth now?
What was farming like in the past?
How do landscapes tell a story of our history, heritage and
lives today?
Elmhurst fourth grade students will be researching these
questions through primary sources such as maps, old photographs, newspaper
articles, objects, documents and especially interviews with farmers and field
trips to farms. They utilized these resources to create this web site ,
artwork and a culminating exhibit.
Project Goals:
Teaching research skills by actively involving the
students in an original research project. Basic research strategies, as well
as map and interview skills will be our focus.
Using community resources to teach our students about
Portsmouth’s farm heritage. (Local farmers, farm organizations, open space
and preservation groups and historical societies will be invited to share with
us.)
Sharing our research with the community by posting a
Portsmouth Farm Heritage website. (Students will learn design skills as we
construct our website)
Collecting resources on local farming for the
community to use. (The maps, photographs, memoirs, interviews, newspaper
articles, etc. that we use will be available at the Elmhurst School Library.)
Utilize the gathered information in art to create
works of art and this web page that tell of farming past and present in
Portsmouth as well as about their own heritage
Our project is funded by a Goff grant from the Rhode
Island Historical Society. This generous grant enables us to bring our
students out to see the farms and it gives us the resources to construct our
website.
This is a continuing project and we intend to keep adding
to our information on Portsmouth Farms!
Spring 2001 Research
- Elmhurst 4th grade class of 2000-2001 began our research
with interviews of local farmers.
- Louis Escobar was interviewed about dairy farming
Martin VanHof was interviewed about
nurseries
Patricia and Stephen DeCastro were
interviewed about produce farming
Craig Totten (Wakefield farmer and brother
of Elmhurst teacher Kurt Totten) was interviewed about organic
farming.
Our research included learning about farming in the past.
We also began some research on farming on the land around our school – the
colonial Cook Farm and Glen Farm.
Flo Oliviera shared her memories of growing up
on the Hathaway Orchard
Fall - December 2001 Focus: Gathering
Information and Creating Multi-Media Responses
Preparing For the Field Trips:
- Library: Introduced research techniques. Students
worked on creating informed interview questions for the farmers to using a
variety of resources in the library.
- Art: Created sketchbooks and studied photographs of
(Portsmouth) and artists that represent past and present farm landscapes.
On the Field Trips:
Students visited...
- Rhode Island Nurseries: New Methods of
Composting and Pot in Pot. Use of mules as an example of old methods
of farming.
- Greenvale Farm and Vineyards: Old and New
farming Technique - "The Gentlemen Farmer"
- Prescott Farm: An Example of Old farming
Technologies; A Wind Gristmill, Old Tools and Buildings
- Manic Organic: Organic farming and Its relation to
Old Yankee farming Techniques
Students gathered information in the following ways for the
web page and other projects that will be done at Elmhurst:
- Asked farmers their researched questions about the
farm
- Photographed the farms
- Drew landscapes of the farms in their sketchbooks
Back at Elmhurst:
Students utilized our gathered information (sketches,
photographs and video tapes) to continue working on the following projects in
library:
- Compiled and gathered more information in library on the
farms for the student-based website
- Made class decisions as a group on what information should
be on the site ,wrote it, and decided on the layout, graphics, artwork and
photographs that best illustrate the information of their page. They
designed the website so that it is informative and also visually interesting
to others in the community. This also was a culminating activity that
reports what they have learned and created as a part of this project.
- Created the website working in small groups based on team
layout drawings
- Created their own landscapes in watercolors that depict
past or present farming landscapes from the photographs and sketchbooks
- Connected their heritage to these experiences by creating a
personal landscape after researching their own family history
   
|
