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The project seeks to redress imbalance between the reliance on technological advancements in light of imported industrially produced art materials and eco-pedagogical dispositions of in-service art teachers in some African counties. The purpose is to provide an alternative to industrially produced art materials to instill reliance on adept local resources to lower cost, ensure availability, and create art materials and concomitant artworks from one's environment. Thus, the project has two facets, an Art-lab Module that entails an eco-action research by Community of Practice , and a Camp Module that entails a culminating seminar for reports and discussions. A Community of Practice, a cohort of in-service art teachers in diverse cultures will work with their students in an art laboratory to explore, identity, collect, and design art materials from the local environment and test them by art making. Exploring adept local natural resources may entail recycling materials for art from one's environment. The participants will also record their own social history by creating art with the materials on "What I did Yesterday" and write reflections on the ideas and images.   On the account of creating eco-desirable teacher capital, the Community of Practice will come together for a two-week camp to share the results of the art laboratory and engaged in papermaking workshop using local-ecological materials. 

The methodology is to enable a context for eco-action research and reciprocal stimuli for cross-fertilization of ideas through face-to-face seminal dialogues to create a synergy for experience sharing and habits change for sustainable education development. The project will be carried out in collaboration with The Aba House, a Cross Cultural Collaborative center for research, and meeting place for exhibits, community based art workshops, performances, conferences, and classes in a Ghanaian fishing village in a suburb of Accra.

Project timeline

Call for Applications for 2008 AfriCOAE Artist-Teacher Workshop, Ghana

For more information on the project: http://afropoets.tripod.com/eta

Contact
Barthosa Nkurumeh

This collaboration between the University of Lapland and the University of Strathclyde allows students in each University to share research, experience and knowledge about community art, environmental art and art education. Each project is described using text and images. All of the projects contain information about the research underpinning the work, when the project was carried out, who was involved and how the artwork was made.

Notice : Each project leader has given permission for their work to be used for academic research or publication, student projects, lectures and seminars. If the projects, or parts of the projects, are used in this way the author of the work and the ACE pages must be acknowledged as the source. Visit the ACE project at http://ace.ulapland.fi/

Contacts
Glen Coutts (Scotland) and Timo Jokela (Finland) and Maria Huhmarniemi (Finland; webpages)

(Dr. Mary Stokrocki (USA), Dr. Laurie ELdridge (USA), Dr. Olcay Kirisoglu (Turkey), Dr. Ricardo Marin (Granada, Spain).

Dance recently gained popularity in the USA with the broadcast of the reality television show, So you Think you Can Dance. Preadolescents were questioned about their dance preferences. An analysis/interpretation of a class of Arizona seventh and eighth graders¹ drawings and questionnaires revealed their preference for hip-hop dance style, based upon personal and social reasons. This research project boosted students¹ self-confidence in general, drawing and communication abilities specifically, and interdisciplinary research. Students revealed intrapersonal, social, rational, and existential concerns. Gender differences and skin color emerged as major representation concerns, but spatial concerns were inconsequential. Preadolescents revealed their social identities, which transcended their ordinary experiences in the complex world of hip-hop.
Drawings and reflections by this group of students have been posted on a Website. This pilot study enlarged into a cross-cultural comparison with groups of students in Granada, Spain, and Antakya, Turkey, which revealed cultural differences and similarities. START YOUR OWN BLOGSITE AT http://www.blogger.com

Internet addresses

• Stokrocki, M., & Eldridge, L. (2006). [Arizona] Children Draw: I Love to Dance.: http://www.reikitantei.net/stokrocki/lovedancing.htm
• Stokrocki, M. (2006). [Turkish] Children draw I love to dance: http://www.ifmls.blogspot.com/
• Marin, R. (2006, 7/1-7/31). Draw dance. [GRANADA drawings] Available at http://draw-yourself-dancing.blogspot.com.