It is what it is. Right?

Flower Dissection Collage

Nick & AJ

Verenice

Marissa

Alex

Group work

Anayelli & Axcel

Group work time

This past week I asked students to navigate the role of being a scientist and artist when looking at alstroemeria flowers I bought at Trader Joe’s. From my vantage point what I observed was students blurring and blending these two roles with ease. Proof is in the beautifully articulated drawings of alstroemerias they hung after 90 minutes of observing and drawing with pencils. As they drew they not only put into practice the observation skills they’ve been developing over the past few weeks, they experimented with different types of graphite pencils on drawing paper. I saw how they pushed graphite into the paper to make lines into shapes and shapes into forms. To their drawings they applied the basic elements of art they had identified previously in the work of Frida Kahlo, Kehinde Wiley, Geogia O’Keefe, Wayne Thiebaud, Alex Katz and Remedios Varo. I saw how students looked closer at the structures of the flower and let their brains do the work. Some asked questions aloud expecting me to give them an answer. One, I’m not an expert in flowers, much less alstroemerias, and two, I don’t know all that much about flowers. I want to learn what they want to learn about about flowers. What new thing will I learn about flowers from my students this year?

The following days students dismantled their alstroemerias to try to understand deeply what they had observed while drawing. In their discussions they began to shape their curiosities into hypothesis that could be researched and analyzed. As I jumped from table to table listening to how they were interpreting information from their observation and readings I became energized. I absolutely love listening to what they want to learn - some of their hypothesis can be year long projects. The challenge for group of 4 students, was to pull their resources together to answer and present their questions in two days. The classroom in both pods began to buzz after reading that most flowers have egg containing ovaries and sperm cells are encapsulated inside pollen grains for flowers to reproduce just like animals do, sexually. So the questions began to flow: Do alstroemerias flowers contain both reproductive organs of the plant? Will it be easy to identify the male or female reproductive parts when we compare alstroemerias to the model lilly in the reading? What is the purpose of a variety of colors of alstroemerias? Do the cells look differently in dark color areas compared to the lighter areas? What is the surface area of the leaves vs. the area of the flower petals?

As I mentioned last week, biology labs can often be prescriptive and don’t allow for much student curiosity to drive their learning. By the end of the week most students shared that this was the closest they had ever observed a flower and may never look at them the same. As students returned dissection kits, turned off microscopes and wrapped up observations on Thursday I wondered when during the weekend will what they’ve been learning pop up in conversations with peers and family. As several students decide to change to a plant-based diet for a month after watching Cowspiracy in humanities, I wonder how they will view food differently in the weeks to come? How will understanding the structure and function of plants influence their food choices in the following weeks?

My hope is for students not to be afraid when they discover something that they had never noticed about themselves.