About This Lesson
Driving Question: What is the purpose and process of public art?
This driving question will help spark student interest and move on to other questions. When students start to think about what the purpose of public art is, they may investigate how it relates to its surroundings, what is the history behind it, and how it is constructed.
Having a project-based lesson that is focused on the visual arts is important. Project-based learning tends to focus on creating models and presentations. However, with this lesson plan, I want students to be thinking of the process and how to build, keeping in mind the aesthetic side of art and focusing on how the art relates to the city. Within my art class, I have had public art units; obviously not to this extent. Students love to explore the art around them. When students are able to learn and see how art is applied within their lives, it becomes more meaningful learning. With this project, students will need to decide if the public art is going to be permeant or temporary, how large, and how it relates to its surroundings. This project-based lesson could be focused in several different ways. It can be visual, historical, abstract, or monumental. This assignment pulls in the history of their town and the public art that is already displayed. It pulls in math with calculations of dimensions and pricing. It also pulls in the basics of architecture and design.
