Ms So Yoon Lym
Updates
So Yoon's students created 24' x 36" tissue paper stained glass projects on Costa Rican animals and plants. They are being showcased as a slide show on the Paterson, NJ Public Schools home page.
Click here to see their work!
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Reflections from the 2009 Toyota International Teacher Program to Costa Rica
Lym, left, planting a cacao plant with her homestay host at Finca La Virgen.
Participation in the Toyota International Teacher Program to Costa Rica has impacted my perspective on environmental conservation and sustainability greatly. Before the program, I didn’t have much knowledge on how people, groups and organizations were addressing issues of conservation and sustainability much less did I truly understood the vocabulary in daily use.
I have always understood concepts of recycling, but my understanding of what conservation and sustainability is now more complete. I think the way most people understand recycling has little to do with conservation and sustainability. One of the most eye opening presentations for me was the Everglades National Park visit and informative session with the park rangers. I didn’t realize that introducing one species of animals that did not naturally inhabit the environment could completely upset the ecosystem of life. True conservation and sustainability go back to a basic connection to the land and to nature and exist in a holistic, symbiotic environment.
I also feel that true conservation and sustainability has much to do with having an appreciation of everything that we see, hear, feel, taste, touch as well as smell. I think this lack of appreciation is at the core to the excessive waste this culture produces. One doesn’t dispose of something so readily if it is truly used and appreciated.
Much of art education within my current school environment troubles me. I witness this when I see students who don’t care about wasting supplies and when they spend time making something yet don’t want to take or keep their projects. I’ve given a lot of thought to this and I feel that it is not so much that the project disinterests them, but that they are disconnected to the basic senses.
I don’t know how to undo many years of my students’ excessive intake of sodas, junk food, loud music, fascination with material goods, nor the use of excessive toxic and artificial scented products. Because all these elements dull the senses and takes one further away from nature. Perhaps an appreciation of the basic elements of art and taking time to see things more carefully is at the heart of true change and transformation.
I have chosen to submit a series of power point images from Costa Rica (and the Everglades) based on the 6 elements of art: line, shape, form, space, color and texture. What started out as folders of 1000’s of photos were compacted into 6 different folders of 50 images. My hopes of integrating an arts program that is in line with what I would consider a responsible and sustainable environment can only come with time.
I still intend on having students work on construction paper and tissue paper stained glasses of Costa Rican wildlife and vegetation this fall. I also plan on having students create plate designs of natural plant forms. And I am working with students to create a coloring book based on my photos taken in Costa Rica. With only a month left of school, it will be difficult to begin or complete any of these projects. Which is why, when I wrote my original application, I proposed these projects for the fall 2009-2010 school year.
But one of the projects that I have begun with students which incorporates left over, recycled components is the ‘food plate project’ I am having students work on. Using cleaned and washed paper and Styrofoam food trays from the cafeteria and remnants of tissue paper form the previous stained glass projects, students are reconstructing the different food plates I photographed in Costa Rica. I am hoping that as students create these sculptural shaped food parts that they become more aware that they are using materials that would have been disposed of needlessly. I am also hoping that I am able to talk more about food choices and meals that comprise of beans, grains, fruits and vegetables.