Transportation Through the Ages: A Study of Functional and Abstract Art

By Katy Ritter
Gastineau Elementary, 4th Grade

I was scheduled to use the 4th grade elementary art kit, Centennial Bridge, but I’d never used it before.  I didn’t check it out with a purpose to integrate it into our current social studies or science units of study, but I was excited to try an Artful Thinking Routine that would add some depth to our discussion, and hopefully deepen students’ engagement in the lesson. I decided that I would begin by showing the photographs of the Gastineau Channel/Douglas Bridge included in the kit, and use the Think/Puzzle/Explore routine. I hoped that showing the photographs without telling any information would invite students to try to build a narrative about the history of transportation in Juneau. ​

I displayed the photographs on my whiteboard tray at the front of the room, and asked students to look at them carefully and quietly without talking. 

I began with the question, “What do you THINK you know about this topic?” Some of their responses:

• “Before, bridges, boats and canoes were used to get across the Gastineau Channel”
• “Tlingit people used to race across the channel for transportation” 
• “The old bridge in 1935 was big, the bridge we have now is smaller” 
• My favorite response was,“the topic could be called ‘History in Motion.'"

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Students seemed to understand that all of the photographs were connected, and they were telling a sequential story of the transportation used in the Gastineau channel. Then I asked, “What questions or puzzles do you have?

• “Why did they change the bridge?”
• “How did they make the new bridge?”
• “How long did it take to build the bridge?”
• “Why was Juneau so small in 1880 and so big in 2010?”

And the final question: "What does this artwork or topic make you want to explore?"

• “Tlingit paddling/canoeing”
• “The first ferry.”
• “How does the bridge built in 1980 stay up?”
• “Was the 1935 bridge torn down because of the miners?”
• “Who came up with the idea to take down the old bridge and build the new one?”

Students were very engaged and excited to find out that the reason the old bridge was replaced was because it was too small for the growing population and the new bridge is larger (this could be linked to why the roundabout was built about ten years ago!) They commented on the structure of each bridge and the difference in design, wondering why the old bridge had more artistic detail.
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I introduced the photographs of the Centennial bridge and we compared it to the Douglas Bridge. We determined that it looks like a pedestrian bridge, which is why the art decorating the two sides of the bridge is in the footpath. We looked carefully at the symbolic images placed on either side of the bridge and thought about the difference between art that is functional (like a bridge, which has a form and a function) and the Centennial bridge, that includes style which carries symbolic MEANING.

​Students then created abstract bridges with 100 pieces of colored paper, creating patterns and lines. The results are as different as my students--each created their own pattern or arrangement of color and shape on the page.

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