TeacherTECH Art Series: Recycling - A Digital Documentary Photo Project (2-Part Series)

Elementary School, Middle School, High School, Community College and Adult Education Educators are Invited to attend our TeacherTECH Art Series focused on engaging your students in a digital photography project to raise awareness of waste and recycling as it relates to our neighborhoods, our cities and our environment. 

Wednesdays, April 7 and May 5, 2010

4:30pm - 6:30pm

SDSC Training Room, San Diego Supercomputer Center

University of California, San Diego

Workshop Description

April is Environmental Awareness Month.   Ask your students the following question: How does your family, neighborhood and local organizations deal with waste?

Part 1:

In this workshop, teachers will learn how to engage youth from their respective schools to participate in a cross-cultural art project about waste and recycling. Teachers will receive instruction on how to work with their students to complete a digital photo documentary project about their own and each other’s neighborhoods through digital documentary “fieldwork,” where students will digitally photograph and interview their own families, local residents, businesses, and organizations about their knowledge of recycling, waste pick up, and answer questions such as – “where does their trash end up?” and then quantitatively investigate amount of trash each neighborhood produces.  The instructor will also cover basic Photoshop to demonstrate to teachers how to use Photoshop text on images to convey a storyline.

These findings by school age students will create a strong awareness and cultivate a sense of personal responsibility about “waste”fulness. Students will write directly on their photos and may choose to include additional essays or interview articles to accompany their images.

Part 2:

Each teacher will learn how to create a photo book (using My Publisher software) of their students’ digital photography and writings to exchange with another school and post photographic and literary selections on a dedicated Facebook page to initiate commentary and interaction with the San Diego and national community. Each teacher will need to bring at least an 8GB flash drive with their students’ digital photographs and any additional Word documents that contain the students’ writing.

Course Objectives

After successful completion of this workshop, the participant will:

• Be introduced to non-profit organizations that empower youth through digital photography
• See a 15 minute DVD excerpt of the Academy Award-winning documentary film Born into Brothels
• Review and become familiarized with the What a Waste! Digital photo project curriculum
• Learn how to create a photo book on the My Publisher website
• Create dedicated Facebook page for What a Waste! photo project

Prerequisites

• Familiarity with digital photography

Workshop Materias That Will Be Needed

• Digital camera (point & shoot or digital SLR)
• Silver, Gold & Black Sharpies
• My Publisher website to make books (http://www.mypublisher.com/) (This is a free software download.) 

Suggested Web Resources and Readings 

• Wendy Ewald: http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/Ewald/
• Outside the Lens: http://www.outsidethelens.org/menu.aspx
• Kids with Cameras: http://www.kids-with-cameras.org/home/

Please join us for an exciting and informative session of hands-on learning presented by  Rebecca Webb, Director, ArtPower, UC San Diego. 

Registration is free. Space is limited. Please contact Ange Mason at 858-534-5064 or amason@ucsd.edu to reserve your space.

For more information on upcoming TeacherTECH workshops, please see  http://education.sdsc.edu/teachertech.