Lower School families recently participated in a collaborative art experience honoring the Great Salt Lake and the creatures that depend on it. The student-led “Art Informance” sought to highlight the need for conservation and preservation as the Great Salt Lake faces an unprecedented ecological crisis. To prepare, students spent weeks researching and creating original artworks of birds, brine shrimp, and habitats that exist in this unique landscape, an important stopover for millions of birds who feed on the brine shrimp and other organisms from the lake.
Student-created birds led families into the Auditorium for the Informance. As students guided parents and siblings through the displays, they shared what they had learned about this one-of-a-kind ecosystem and showed them how to create salt water paintings inspired by the iconic Spiral Jetty art installation.
“The students really engaged with this project,” explains art teacher Abby Ringquist, “and you can really see their creativity at work! What made it relevant for them was to know that the Great Salt Lake is their lake, and even though they are young, they can advocate for it – through their art and through conserving water. That is something we all can do.”
This meaningful art encounter was the result of many weeks of learning, exploring, and creating, and was supported through WSD’s partnership with the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts Learning Program – an initiative that strives to provide high quality, hands-on arts integration experiences for elementary students.
