Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

25 minutes	Part A: How have artists depicted natural hazards?
50 minutes	Part B: Create an artwork that shows the effects of natural hazards
05 minutes	Reflection

Part A: How have artists depicted natural hazards?

Step 1.

Discuss with your class if they have ever seen artwork on natural hazards and facilitate a brief discussion about why artists may have created works to show the destruction and effects of a flood, bushfire, tsunami, volcanic eruptions etc. Tease out ideas about the severity and the physical effects.

Step 2.

Present the slide show: PowerPoint: An Introduction Into Art And Natural Hazards.

Step 3.

Briefly go through the various artworks with the class and discuss how the artist used colour, scale, medium, technique, and perspective to show the effects of natural hazards. Ensure you consider emotion, whether some artworks evoked more emotion than others and why that might be.

You can use this template as a baseline to question and inform student thinking:

Artwork	Colour	Technique	Medium	Perspective	Effect on audience

Part B: Create an artwork that shows the effects of natural hazards

Step 1.

After presenting the slides and discussing the artwork, ask your students to spend a minute thinking about the messages in the artwork and what type of artwork they would like to create. Present the following questions and ask your student to ponder these before they gather their materials and start creating.

What natural hazard will you depict?
What will you include in your artwork?
How will you show the effects of natural hazards on the Australian landscape?
What materials will you use?
What painting, sketching or colouring technique will you experiment with?

Step 2.

Give students 45 minutes to create an A4-sized artwork that shows the physical effects of a natural hazard on our environment.
Materials should not be limited, and students should be encouraged to experiment with collage, painting, charcoal, crayon, led, watercolour, etc.

If you believe a student may require support or would like to work from a template, provide your class with The Great Wave and give them the similar option of playing and exploring with mixed media or design programs to invigorate the following template.

Reflection

Ask your students to annotate their artwork and write 2- 3 sentences that unpack the reasoning behind their art and what they were trying to achieve.
For example, "The artwork The Great Wave depicts an enormous wave threatening three boats off the coast in Sagami Bay while Mount Fuji rises in the background. Assumed to be a tsunami that will threaten the coastal town."

Differentiated learning

Extension

Students can be extended in this topic by letting them research other artworks from around the world which show the effects of a natural hazard. They may wish to expand on their original idea or create a new painting or artwork based on further investigation and technical capabilities.

Provisions for learning support

Teachers can provide a natural hazards template for students that may require additional support and assistance.

Teacher reflection

Take this opportunity to reflect on your own teaching:

What did you learn about your teaching practice today?
What worked well?
What didn't work so well?
What would you share?
Where to next?
How are you going to get there?

Resilient Australia - The Magnitude of Natural Hazards Drawing and Analysis

Go to

Summary

Lesson guides and printables

In this lesson