Come and see our etchings!

Last week during my school's Arts Festival, the Biology department (where I work) and the Art department got together so that our pupils could do some etching from cells.  The results were superb.  Here's how they did it:

Firstly they selected a pre-prepared microscope slide and did some drawings:

Then, they scratched their design onto an etching plate.  This is a piece of steel covered in black stop-out varnish:

These where then immersed in nitric acid.  The acid 'eats away' the metal in the places where the varnish has been scratched off:

 Then we inked the plates (very messy) and used them to create prints:

 Here are some of the fabulous prints that our pupils created:

The pupils had a brilliant time and their inner artists were definitely brought out.  Using slides as a basis for the prints focussed their minds and allowed them to explore the world in microscopic detail.  Time off-timetable to do things like this is priceless.  It allows us to see our pupils in a different light and lets our minds wander, allowing our brains to recuperate during such a frenetic term.  Our stress levels definitely dropped and we all learnt something new.

I can't wait until Arts Festival part II in the summer term

Biology is Art

In October, my school is running a two day arts festival where we are all stop 'normal' lessons and get involved in arty stuff.  As you can imagine, this is right up my street, so, together with another biology teacher and an art teacher, we are planning to combine biology with art.

First off, the students are going to select microscope slides and make some drawing of cells.  They are then going to etch the cells onto metal plates.  This is something that I have been wanting to learn for ages and Lizzy (the art teacher) is brilliant at it.  Lastly, we are going to make pendants with metal clay and use the etchings to create a texture in the clay.

Sometime next week, we plan to have a go and see what they turn out like, so I will post some photos.  I love cross-curricular teaching and I love that my school allows us to be free to experiment.  It is nice for the kids to see us out of our boxes and for them to be out of their's too.