Creativity in Corvallis—Community Connections: Creating, Interpreting, and Giving Back with Kindergarten Students and High School Students

Abstract

This project focuses on community-based art education by highlighting the art project experience of kindergarten and high school students over the course of an academic year. The theoretical perspective for this series of projects used an arts-based inquiry approach which is experimental and reflexive in nature. The youngest students created two-dimensional drawings and collage projects from which they selected one project to be created in three-dimensional form by the high school students. This process demonstrated the development of complex creative thinking skills and openness to collaboration for both kindergartners and high school students as projects were reinterpreted and transformed into three dimensional forms. Additionally, the benefits of the work for the students and the community members were apparent through the feedback teachers received over the year. The project shows the positive impact of multi-age partnerships in arts education. It is a useful model for community-connected learning across the K-12 spectrum. University design students will extend this work by interpreting the two-dimensional and three-dimensional projects through a four-dimensional time-based lens.