The Seeds of Change project challenged students to design a sustainable growing system for the Highland Youth Garden in Hilltop, Ohio. The system had to be functional for the garden’s needs while also making a positive impact on the Hilltop community. The Hilltop community is a food desert, with many residents experiencing high levels of food insecurity and homelessness. Students were to use their designs to consider ways that our communities could work together to find sustainable solutions for food insecurity and bring public art to the Hilltop community.
The sustainable growing system installed at the Highland Youth Garden.Left: Mallory K., grade eight, with her felted art. Right: Alpaca and sheep fiber.
Creativity, critical thinking, and collective problem-solving are the cornerstones of my Art and Ecology class at the Hilliard City Schools Innovative Learning Hub. Through student agency, with a focus on action and experiential learning, my goal is to make learning come alive for students so they can become better thinkers, knowers, and doers.
Interdisciplinary Connections
My Art and Ecology class connects art-making, environmental issues, and community to create authentic learning experiences. This innovative approach to learning encourages students to see the interconnectedness of knowledge and apply their learning in new and relevant ways.
I received a TeachArtsOhio grant through the Ohio Arts Council, which allowed sustainable fashion designer Celeste Malvar-Stewart to spend four weeks in our classroom as an artist-in-residence. During her residency, students, staff, and community participated in the Seeds of Change project.
A Meaningful Design Challenge
The Seeds of Change project challenged students to design a sustainable growing system for the Highland Youth Garden in Hilltop, Ohio. The system had to be functional for the garden’s needs while also making a positive impact on the Hilltop community.
The Hilltop community is a food desert, with many residents experiencing high levels of food insecurity and homelessness. Students were to use their designs to consider ways that our communities could work together to find sustainable solutions for food insecurity and bring public art to the Hilltop community.
Sustainable Fibers
Students researched sustainable materials to use for the growing system. Through Malvar-Stewart’s talks and expertise, they discovered that sheep and alpaca fibers are one of the most sustainable ways to create textiles. When felted, these fibers are naturally waterproof, heat resistant, cold resistant, durable, and fire retardant.
To deepen student understanding about sheep and alpaca fibers, I invited shepherdess Laurel Shouvlin from Bluebird Hill Farm in Dayton, Ohio, for a class visit. Shouvlin is a national alpaca fiber expert, and she shared her knowledge about sustainable fibers and life as a shepherdess. Students loved learning about all the happy sheep that live on the farm, such as Aidan and Coco Chanel, as well as how lightweight sheep fiber is, making it an ideal textile for the growing system.
Creating a Felted Planter
Malvar-Stewart demonstrated to students how she uses alpaca and sheep fiber to create felted couture gowns. The process of using water and agitation to create felt piqued students’ curiosity and wonder. Malvar-Stewart guided students through the fluffing, scrubbing, and fulling of the alpaca and sheep fiber donated by Bluebird Hill Farm. Over the course of four days, students each created their own work of felted art. These squares were then combined to create one felted planter for the Highland Youth Garden.
Off-Site Learning and Installation
We took a field trip to the Highland Youth Garden to learn more about urban farming and community gardens and to assist in the installation of the felted planters. Students were able to observe and participate in practical aspects of urban farming, including hoop houses, growing systems, water storage, and planning as part of good design.
The felted growing planter my students made is a permanent centerpiece in the outdoor classroom at the garden. During the installation, Art and Ecology students could be heard saying, “Look, there’s mine!” and “This is the best day I’ve ever had in school!” Many students have continued their work with other community gardens and have begun implementing similar growing systems in their own backyards.
Inspiring Community
Inspiration is contagious, and the Seeds of Change project inspired so many members of our community. Filmmaker Thomas Sawyer covered this project in his documentary Every Fiber, which has been shown at numerous film festivals across the United States, as well as the McConnell Arts Center in Worthington, Ohio, and the Decorative Arts Center in Lancaster, Ohio.
The Seeds of Change project is about planting seeds both metaphorically and literally in students and the community, inspiring collective action for positive change. Students, staff, family members, and community members from Columbus and Hilliard all saw and continue to experience a work of art that challenges old ways of thinking and inspires new ways of doing.
Amanda Schaeffer is a teacher at Hilliard City Schools Innovative Learning Hub in Hilliard, Ohio. Amanda_Schaeffer@HBOE.org
National Standard
Connecting: Relating artistic ideas and work with personal meaning and external context.
Art teachers use nature to inspire students to become more in tune with themselves and the world around them. Young students take a mindful approach as they collage an imaginary place in which they feel calm, elementary students create visual responses that evoke empathy for those experiencing environmental disasters, middle-school students collaborate to create a sustainable felted planter for a community garden, high-school students build custom birdhouses for residents at a local retirement village, and more.
