With her Education Foundation grant titled Art in Science, Alamo STEAM Academy teacher Sandra Elms and fellow teachers will be taking a group of fifth graders to the Sibley Nature Center in Midland.
The award was for $943.13 and the trip will take place in March.
“We’re going to do art journaling, nature journaling. Michael Nickell, the center’s scientist and naturalist,” Elms said. “He’s going to be giving a lesson in art journaling. I’m going to take them out on a hike to do a field study and then Phil Salonek; he is the education director. He’s going to give a science lesson on desert adaptations and water conservation.”
Elms said she would have pressed plants like mesquite and greasewood and press plants them into the journals. As they’re going through the field, they’ll find it, learn some facts about them and write it under the plant.
“The reason I wrote the grant is because I believe the best way for students to learn is for everything to be connected. As an artist, I’m an observer. And as a scientist, I’m an observer. We’re just doing different things with that information. I see them all as connected. I think that’s the best way to teach. Another passion of mine is that children are getting disconnected with nature and that that’s not healthy. So it’s not only connect them to nature, but where we live; our backyard; what’s unique to where we live,” Elms added.
Elms went through Texas Master Naturalist program at Sibley and that’s how she learned to appreciate how unique the habitat is here.
“… It’s hard to see sometimes because of the oil field, but if you if you focus in on where we live, it’s a really unique place. And I think, again, that young people need to be connected to their community. It helps if you appreciate where you live,” Elms said. About 50 students will take the trip.
“… Before I wrote the grant, which I was really pleased with, I went to the to fifth-grade teachers and I said, are you in and they were so excited. That was it for me. I was like, Yes, I’m going write this grant because they’re excited about going. I felt like people don’t know about Sibley Nature Center …,” she said.
She hopes that one day Odessa can have its own nature center.
“… It’s always been my heart to take young people out in nature, and let them observe and learn about the Llano Estacado,” Elms said.
She added that she had been awarded an Education Foundation grant about 20 years ago when she was at Blackshear Elementary School. Back then, she was a science teacher and the other teacher taught art.
“Talk about a full circle. And here I am the art teacher wow, I’m at a STEAM Academy and it would be really cool if we could do that,” Elms said.
The different spin on it is that after several art classes on plants and animals of the area, Elms is planning an art show in late spring that will include their art journals and some research on what they learned about water conversation, for example.
“I do want to I do want to take some iPads out, though, and we’re going to do some photography and then use those. I’ll project them and then we’ll do some drawings and some art from it, which will be fun,” Elms added.
The things the students will learn are part of the fifth grade Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, the state curriculum.
Students can also see how what they’re learning will be relevant later on.
“… I really believe the ownership and the authenticity is where they learn because (it’s) … experiential, and it’s where they live. And so all of a sudden, it will have value to them. You retain and you keep what is valuable to you. I think that’s key,” Elms said.
She added that she is so thankful for the Education Foundation where a teacher can have a creative idea, get funded and give students the chance for a fresh new learning experience.
Elms said other teachers should apply for Education Foundation grants, too. Hopefully, this will be the seed that “gets planted on my campus to start.”
She added that she wouldn’t have done it if the other teachers weren’t as enthusiastic as she was about trying for it.
“They’re going to have a blast,” she said.
Nickell got a grant to obtain a display called Surviving the Ice Age that Elms said the students will love.
“I’m really excited about it,” Elms said. After the last trip, she said students told her it was the best day of their lives.
