Chemung River School Project

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Scholastics Exhibition!

In February, CRSP students visited the Arnot Art Museum and the Chemung Valley History Museum for tours of the The Scholastics Art Show at the Arnot and a tour of the main galleries at CVHM focusing on Mark Twain. At the Arnot Art Museum, students learned how many well-known artists got their start through this competition – some right here in Elmira. Because the artwork on display is created by people just a few years older than the students themselves, children are amazed and inspired. Comparisons are made between scholastics art and the art they remembered from the picture gallery or by the Hudson River School artists they saw in November. Students tour included hands-on activities created by museum educators.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Kaye Newbury visits CRSP Classrooms

Kaye Newbury is the poet who worked with CRSP students this year beginning in September for the Riverwalks and again in December for an introduction to writing one of the most important traditional forms of Japanese poetry - haiku. Haiku is famous for its characteristically vivid imagery densely packed into compact sensory observations about nature. Kaye has a unique way of teaching haiku - the students play a game and write a poem together! Although the smallest of literary forms, there are many rules when writing haiku poetry. Haiku poetry has 17-syllables total with three lines consisting of five, seven and five syllables each.

Kaye transcribes students' ideas as they brainstorm animals

and objects they observed during the riverwalks.

Students have lots of ideas!

Kaye transcribes complete phrases with five and seven

syllables each. These phrases will form complete haikus.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Riverfest!

Riverfest '11 is currently on display at the Arnot Art Museum! Bring your families and your students to get just a tiny glimpse at all the learning and fun that has taken place since September for Chemung River School Project students and staff! The show will be up until May 30th and features a video of all the year's activities.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Annemarie Zwack's blog!

Annemarie Zwack, our artist in residence, has her own blog on which she writes and posts pictures from her work in schools as well as community projects and her own personal work! Check out these pictures from her work with CRSP at Chemung Elementary School!

http://zwackart.com/category/recent-projects/

Saturday, November 6, 2010

CRSP students visit the Chemung Valley History Museum!!

CRSP Students got to visit the Chemung Valley History Museum for an introduction to Native American culture and history. Children's book author, Michael DeMunn of the Seneca tribe, Hawk clan, was present to talk to the children about the Iroquois way of life and to read from his award winning book Places of Power.

Kerry Lippincott, Education Coordinator at the museum, led the children on a scavenger hunt, set up authentic games that Iroquois children used to play for CRSP children to try, presented authentic artifacts for the children to handle and identify and provided a craft for the children to take home! Watch the video below to get an idea of the rich program CRSP students were fortunate to experience.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Tanglewood in the classroom at Chemung Elementary School!

Ian McLaughlin introduces new concepts and reinforces lessons already learned to Cynthia Sindoni's attentive students at Chemung Elementary School in the Waverly School District

Students learn that all parts of the food web are connected.

Students "become" various parts of the food web - producers, herbivores, omnivores or carnivores - and discover that damage to one part of the food web has consequences for all organisms in other parts of the food web.

Cynthia Sindoni takes photographs during Ian's presentation

Box Turtle

Yellow Spotted Salamander

Richardson's Ground Squirrel

Broad tailed hawk

The students are enthralled with "Icarus" as they learn, not only natural science, but Greek mythology as well!

Students write in their CRSP journals which they will keep all year

The principal, Mr. Mastrantuono visits the classroom as Sharon Bella assists the teacher

Friday, October 8, 2010

CRSP Riverwalks - Fall 2010!

Award winning poet, Kaye Newbury, on site with the fortunate students from the Horseheads Central School District enrolled in the Chemung River School Project, She introduces the concept of journaling with the students and paying close attention with their senses.

Ian McLaughlin, naturalist from Tanglewood Nature Center, introduces students to the science behind the flora and fauna of the Chemung River.

A boy shows off the exoskeleton of a crayfish he found. He learned from Ian that crayfish are freshwater crustaceans and are arthropods.

A boy writes and draws intently in his journal

Mr. Bartley, 4th grade teacher from Center Street School in the Horseheads Central School District writes in his journal too! Mr. Bartley, along with his colleagues, Elaine Benton and Amy Karastury, have enrolled their students in CRSP for many years.

The children begin observing and exploring along the Chemung River

Writing in their journals

A video capturing just a few of the special moments for Horsehead's Center Street student's during their time spent with Kaye Newbury and their teacher, Bob Bartley. Check the archives for blog entries from Riverwalks past!

Coming very soon will be photos and video from the Tanglewood Classroom Visits by Ian McLaughlin with Cynthia Sindoni's 4th graders at Chemung Elementary School.

For more information about the Chemung River School Project, see the contact information to the right.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Chemung River School Project 2009/2010 in review

Another school year is over, but we have many fond memories of the adventures, fun and multi-disciplinary learning that has taken place all year long for the fortunate students who participated in the Chemung River School Project.

They are fortunate to have administrators and teachers at their schools who have been willing to go the extra mile (literally and figuratively) for their students! Because of these instructors, their education is enriched in ways most parents would choose for their own children if they could make such a choice.

Administrators and teachers this year included:

Waverly Central School District
Michael McMahon, Superintendent

Chemung Elementary School
1) Dave Mastrantuono, Principal
2) Jeanne Gridley. Jeanne has retired and will not be returning next year. This is sad for us, but we have happy wishes for Jeanne!
3) John McGuire. John was the Chemung Elementary School Principal for many years and remains an avid supporter of the Chemung River School Project. He, too, will be greatly missed!

Horseheads School District
Dr. Ralph Marino, Jr., Superintendent
Alice Learn, Asst. Superintendent

Center Street Elementary School
1) Principal, Patricia Sotero
2) Robert Bartley
3) Elaine Benton
4) Amy Karastury

Big Flats
1) Elizabeth Scaptura, Principal
2) Danielle Aepelbacher
3) Lisa Comer
4) Maren Schiefen

ELMIRA CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT:
Joseph Hochreiter, Superintendent
Mary Jane Eckel, Arts Coordinator for the Elmira City School District

Diven School
1) Pam Davis-Webb, principal
2) Jessica Ossiboff
3) Darla Smith
4) Corina Forsythe
5) Christopher Reger
6) Wendy Zepp

Scroll down this multi-media blog and click on the videos to review the variety of experiences provided by the teaching artists, naturalists and arts institutions listed below who share with us their talent, expertise and dedication to this program.

Elaine Farwell, Emily Hofelich-Jack and Ian McLaughlin of the Tanglewood Nature Center; Sue Smith Heavenrich, poet; Rhonda Morton, poet, performance artist; Joan Neece, Native American presenter; Kerry Lippincott, Chemung Valley History Museum; Georgeanna Keser, teaching artist; Wendy Taylor, Director of Tours and Rick Pirozzolo, Executive Director of the Arnot Art Museum; Annemarie Zwack, teaching artist; Toni Gardner, Anne Hughes, Cornell Cooperative Extension educators.

Have a wonderful summer and hope to see you all next fall for another year of adventure, fun and learning. We have some wonderful new projects (along with old favorites) planned for next year!

For more information on the award winning Chemung River School Project, contact the Arnot Art Museum at 607-734-3697 or e-mail solrane@earthlink.net Enrollment for the program is open for a limited time.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Spring Riverwalks 2010!

Performance artist and poet, Rhonda Morton and Naturalist Educator, Ian McLaughlin from Tanglewood Nature Center presented the Spring Riverwalks to CRSP students. Both presenters asked students to draw on experiences during the fall riverwalks and classroom visits as written in the journals they kept all year.

Morton focused on the use of simile and metaphor in writing and was able to inspire the students to generate some of their own through careful and quiet observation and techniques for building sensory and writing "muscles."

The grass smells like a fresh salad....The tall grass looks like mist rising...The leaves look like a small bed...the creek whooshes like a conductor's wand...The clover looks like butterflies...The grass looks like the back of a giant bug.

McLaughlin reviewed the water cycle with his students and introduced them to some new fauna. Students learned where the Wyncoop Creek originated and had lots of fun exploring it and discovering new creatures especially hiding under rocks. For some 4th graders, it was their first experience finding crayfish and small bugs and amphibians in the wild.

Center Street teacher, Bob Bartley, accompanies his students to the Chemung River.

A wood pecker was on hand at the Wyncoop Creek offering plenty of sensory output!

It sounds like A whole orchestra: the woodpecker is a drum, the other birds are flutes, the clothes rubbing sound like a guitar...

The woodpecker sounds llike a man chopping wood...

The flowers look like confetti...

Center Street teacher, Elaine Benton, documents the event with her camera.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Riverfest 2010!

Below are some samples of projects Chemung River School Project students created during the artist, Annemarie Zwack's residency in January. Fourth graders from Chemung Elementary School in Waverly, NY and Center Street and Big Flats Schools in Horseheads created miniature books in which they imagined themselves as water droplets in the water cycle. Students both wrote and illustrated these very imaginative adventures! Students at Diven Elementary School created beautiful posters with environmental themes using collage, cut paper and mixed media. Riverfest! is on display until June 22nd at the Arnot Art Museum.

THE CHEMUNG RIVER SCHOOL PROJECT

The exciting and innovative program known as the Chemung River School Project - or CRSP - was initiated in 1994 by museum educators at the Arnot Art Museum. The program offers 4th grade students from the region a full school year of a rich and diverse range of experiences which take place in area museums, classrooms and outdoors by the river itself. This nine-month multidisciplinary collaborative program combines fourth grade science, natural and social history, and ecology curricula with writing, literature, performing and visual arts. Artists and museum educators employ methods of teaching which address the whole child – his or her cognitive, affective and physical being. Visual, audio, tactile and kinesthetic learning is intrinsic to arts education and research has proven that multi-sensory stimulation enhances learning and retention in every way.

CRSP has been nationally recognized by the NY State Council on the Arts, the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National Endowment for the Arts. Our educators and presenters are HIGHLY educated and qualified to teach and are willing to work with your teachers to tailor their curriculum to the needs of regional schools. Many of them have received awards for their art and/or their teaching. Our visual artists have hailed from the big cities to our own backyards and have exhibited their artwork in galleries, museums and universities throughout the nation. One of our teaching artists - Damali Abrams - was granted a very prestigious fellowship with the A.I.R. Gallery in New York City. Janna Keser brings not only her education and experience in art education to her teaching, but her travels around the world. Her lesson plans are always fully integrated with social studies and the humanities. Annemarie Zwack and Diedra Krieger each continue to exhibit their work in national venues and receive awards for their work. Kaye Newbury is the featured poet this year for the Festival of Women in the Arts at the Steele Memorial Library and has had years of experience teaching children. Our museum educators at the Arnot Art Museum and the staff at Tanglewood Nature Center, Chemung Valley History Museum and the Cornell Cooperative Extension are, without exception, highly educated, experienced and passionate about their work. The cost of bringing these talented artists and educators into your classroom on an individual basis would be prohibitive, but is an excellent value through CRSP.

NY State Learning Standards in Social Studies, Language Arts, Science and the Arts are met and exceeded in a myriad of ways.

The Chemung River School Project integrates the various aspects of the curriculum into a thematic whole with the river at the center and the arts as the vehicle used for expression of information learned. Part of the program places emphasis on the environmental concerns of the Hudson River School, a group of 19th Century landscape painters, and how this relates to the future of our own Chemung River. Later on, in keeping with the Arnot Art Museum's slogan ART NOW, students are introduced to contemporary artists - some who work in non-traditional media - for whom water and environmental concerns are recurring themes.

Students have the opportunity to recognize the balance which exists between local history, ecological communities, and the dynamic impact of past and living artists on society. Students use the arts as a vehicle to express their understanding of nature, especially as it relates to the Chemung River.

Following the culmination of the project year, in May, a student exhibition featuring visual art and writing is exhibited at the Arnot Art Museum and the Chemung Valley History Museum.

This nationally recognized program has been the recipient of the following grants: New York State Council on the Arts, Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Arnot Art Museum works with the Chemung County Historical Society, Tanglewood Nature Center, Cornell University Cooperative Extension, and the following school districts: Elmira, Horseheads, and Waverly. Poets, visual artists, musicians, historians, naturalists and water environmentalists serve as instructors.

Instructors for the 2010/11 School Year:

Writer/Poet
1 Kaye Newbury

Visual Artists
· Georgianna Keser
· Annemarie Zwack

Native American artists

Mike DeMunn

Organizations:
· Arnot Art Museum
· Tanglewood Nature Center
· Chemung County Historical Society
· Cornell University Cooperative Extension

Participating School Districts:
· Horseheads Central School District: Center Street and Big Flats Elementary Schools
· Waverly Central School District: Chemung Elementary

Students enrolled in the Chemung River School Project have educational experiences that cannot be duplicated within the confines of the classroom. In 2010/11, students experienced new methods of learning new content each month.
In September, students met by the river with a poet and science/nature writer and representatives from Tanglewood Nature Center for an introduction to journal writing and the ecosystem of the river and surrounding meadows. Students learned to pay close attention to their sensory impressions of the environment and how to write without inhibition in their journals. They also collected organisms from the water and insects from the field. They constructed a food web and showed the various niches filled by the organisms collected that correlate to human counterparts. Plant specimens were also collected and pressed.

These on-site experiences were followed up with their teachers in the classroom and a couple weeks later as the poet and naturalists visited their classrooms.

In October, students met at the Chemung Valley History Museum with Native American artist and author, Mike DeMunn, for learning about Native American culture through his very own children's book, history, stories and legends. Students then went with CVHM museum educator, Kerry Lippincott for hands-on learning about Indian culture through touching artifacts from the museum's holdings and then playing authentic games and crafts. It was a highly interactive experience involving listening skills and numerous opportunities for creative participation playing authentic musical instruments and making jewelry or utilitarian objects to take with them. Students developed an appreciation for the many inventions and contributions of Native Americans to the agriculture, language and culture of the civilizations that developed along the shores of the Chemung River.

In November, students visited the Arnot Art Museum with Janna Keser and Maria Driscoll McMahon for an introduction to the Arnot Art Museum’s picture gallery and its collection of Hudson River School artists. Students learned that looking at art is a multi-sensory process that also involves critical thinking.

They came away with a new awareness of the environment and of American history by studying the artists of the past as well as contemporary artists. They learned how artists can effect social and environmental change.

The teaching artist, Janna Keser, offered a hands-on activity - the making of fabric collages - for the students for a large portion of the workshop.

In December, the poet from the Riverwalks, Kaye Newbury returned to the classroom to follow up and discuss seasonal changes to the environment. Students reflected on the journal writing they had done in the fall and practiced the art of paying attention with all their senses. Students were introduced to writing haiku poetry which further nurtured a love for literature and language and an appreciation for the natural environment.

In January, artist Annemarie Zwack visited the classrooms to work on the creation of ceramic tiles.

In February, students returned to the Arnot Art Museum for a tour of the Scholastics Art Show and the Chemung Valley History Museum for tours of two of their main exhibitions. The Scholastics Art Show has a long history at the Arnot Art Museum and students learned how many well-known artists got their start through this competition – some right here in Elmira. Because the artwork on display is created by people just a few years older than the students themselves, children are amazed and inspired. Comparisons are made between scholastics art and the art they remembered from the picture gallery or by the Hudson River School artists they saw in November. By this time, students are beginning to acquire some fluency in the language used in the analysis and interpretation of visual art. This tour includes hands-on activities created by museum educators.

At the Chemung Valley History Museum, students immerse themselves in a stimulating environment to learn about life in the past. They complete “exhibit encounter” packets as they move through museum exhibits focusing on two local celebrities, Mark Twain and Floyd Woodhull.

In April representatives from the Cornell Cooperative Extension - Antoinette Gardner and visit the classroom introducing students to the dirty job of keeping water clean. Students will be introduced to the water cycle and asked to ponder why water is so important. Emphasis will be on conservation and students become more conscientious about the water we all consume and pollute daily. Hands-on activities follow a school-yard hike.

In May, students will return to the Chemung River to observe seasonal changes and their impact on the environment. Students have honed writing skills and will learn what it means to be ‘adapted” to an area and/or certain environmental conditions. They will gain an idea of what an introduced species is and the effect that such species can have on natives. Concepts of adaptability will be addressed and students will be asked to reflect on the implications of environmental change as it relates to the life and health of organisms adapted to a given ecosystem.

Also in May, The Arnot Art Museum will sponsor a Riverfest featuring the arts and crafts of regional artists. Students who had participated in the Chemung River School Project will have work they created throughout the year on display at the Arnot Art Museum and the Chemung Valley History Museum for a wonderful culmination to an exciting year inside and outside the classroom.

As always, the Chemung River will continue to be the pivot around which the program revolves and the inspiration for these artists and naturalists. Preservation of the river and the waters of the world will continue to be part of the mission of CRSP. We at the Arnot Art Museum remain as dedicated as ever to educating young people about the Chemung River – and all areas of the curriculum – through the arts.

For more information, please contact:
Maria Driscoll McMahon,
Director of Education for the Chemung River School Project
607-330-5742 (home)
Arnot Art Museum
235 Lake StreetElmira, NY
14901
http://www.arnotartmuseum.org/