“I shall never find in the wilds of Labrador any greater wildness than in some recess of Concord”

Henry David Thoreau, Walden

In the summer of 2000, Wayne Little and David Luther, an art teacher and a science teacher from Burlington High School in Burlington, Massachusetts, developed an innovative interdisciplinary curriculum unit called "Art and Science: Where Do You Draw the Line?" (PDF file, 16 pages) This curriculum leads students through scientific, literary, and visual concepts combining the skills and practices of artistic and scientific observation.  Using Henry David Thoreau as a model observer, students learn how to notice, identify, and represent both the botanical elements and the design principles found in the natural world of the Burlington High School Landscape.  The results of this curriculum were presented to the 2001 Boston Flower Show where they won the silver medal for the educational category.

See the result of this unit with a more detailed overview of the work that students had done throughout the year! ("The Model in Practice", PDF file, 35 pages)

Click on thumbnails below to see samples of student work - pages from their journal entries and abstract drawings of plants.