Science fair art.

You can almost smell it. The gas of Bunsen burners, the beans sprouting, the students sweating their grades--wondering if they should start procrastinating now, or just wait and start procrastinating a hit later. It's science fair time!

This is a time when seasoned nonscience teachers typically give up all hope of cramming any more knowledge into the heads of their students. It's just too much.

However, we nonscience types might be missing out on a pretty good deal. The science department has got these kids in a pretty tight grip as far as the process and the product they need to turn in. What they don't have is a monopoly on the creative ideas that students might choose for their projects. And that's where we artistic types might want to break some ground.

The Science of Art

How about offering students extra credit or other encouragement for selecting a science fair project with a significant art connection? There are hundreds of great artistic channels for the science student to explore. As art teachers, we might encourage students by asking them to brainstorm lists of artistic ideas that would be suitable for science fair projects. Or we might simply supply them with a list and encourage them to add to it. Keep in mind that any project a student selects must lead them to the ability to hypothesize an outcome, measure, collect, and test data, and verify and communicate their results. I'd encourage you to run your ideas past the chair of your science department to make sure the topics work for them.

The Art of Science

Whatever your students decide for their projects, whether artistic or a more traditional science topic, the presentation of the final project begs for artistic focus. This is a great time to discuss graphic and illustrative arts. You might coordinate a unit on lettering; sculptural paper arts that might give a moderately 3-D effect to students' backboard, or computer graphics for the production of various charts and graphs to coincide with the science fair at your school. Discuss the selection of font for lettering, color use, balance of the presentation backboard, drawing attention to the most important details. You might use this as an excuse to provide a unit on digital photography along with the manipulation of digital images, always maintaining the integrity of the scientific truth.

Encourage students to develop their skills in artistic and graphic design. Providing resources and references for understanding design choices and layout seems to be a perfect fit for the science fair. You might want to encourage your science fair officials to consider a special category for the best graphic layout of a science fair project. Perhaps a few practicing professional artists in your community would be willing to judge this part of the event. Prizes, certificates, and other rewards similar to those given in other scientific categories might be awarded for the artistic winners and honorees.

For an extensive list of concepts connecting art and science go to www.davis-art.com/SchoolArts. Download and share these ideas with your science teacher colleagues.

Kevin Sullivan is a middle school art teacher in Ketchikan, Alaska.