Community Service Through Art: Empty Bowls

Download PDF Version

Instructor: Nancy Ensminger-Sams

Workshop: Cross-Cultural Classroom

Targeted Grade Level(s): Fifth Grade

Content Area(s) Covered: Art, Social Studies

Anticipated Duration: Four 50 minute class periods and two meeting times after school for the committee and the meal

Rationale:

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” Mahatma Gandhi

Global issues and sustainable solutions are what we need our students to become knowledgeable about so that they can be the change.  Poverty is a worldwide problem and in some way affects everyone.  Providing an opportunity for students to make a difference in their community instills a sense of community service, awareness, and empowers our youth.  The majority of the homeless population of Alachua County is ten years old.  The students who participate in the service learning through art project are also ten years old.

Objectives:

  1. Through activities students will become more aware of the worldwide poverty issues.
  2. Through reading books, students can get a feeling for what the daily life of a person who lives in poverty is like.
  3. Students are provided an opportunity to make a difference in their own community by making ceramic bowls and host an Empty Bowls Meal (funds are donated to a local organization that will help people in poverty in Alachua County).  The lesson starts with knowledge about world issues and solutions of poverty and evolves into an awareness of community issues and solution of poverty.

Sunshine State Standards

Overall Resources/Materials Needed:

Books

  1. Bunting, Eve. Fly Away Home. (1991). New York: Clarion Books.
  2. Testa, Maria. Somewhere to Go. (1996). Illinois: Albert Whitman & Co.
  3. Face the Future Activity Book

Websites

  1. Facing the Future—Global Education website: http://www.facingthefuture.org
  2. Empty Bowls Project Home Page: http://www.emptybowls.com
  3. World Food Day Information: http://www.worldfooddayusa.org/
  4. Information about Crop Walks: http://churchworldservice.org/CROP/
  5. Information about a non-profit organization dedicated to world hunger: http://www.freefromhunger.org/
  6. A website for Service and Volunteering: http://www.servenet.org/
  7. Hunger Web: http://nutrition.tufts.edu/academic/hungerweb/
  8. http://www.unitedagainsthunger.org/
  9. Food and Agriculture Organization: http://www.fao.org/wfd/2005/index.asp?lang=en
  10. http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/world_population.htm
  11. Statistics on the human population by continent: http://www.geohive.com/global/pop_w_reg.php
  12. Transitional Program for Homeless Women: http://www.chrysaliscomm.org/
  13. Population Reference Bureau: http://www.prb.org/

Procedures:

Day 1

Materials

Procedures

  1. Before class, find the world population by continent. Some information is below:

    Continent Human Beings (millions)
  2. Calculate percentages to be used in the “Let Them Eat Cake” activity from Facing the Future.
  3. Find world resources consumption by continent-

    According to the World Resources Institute (2004), the average daily per capita availability (1999) is as follows:
    • North America: 3,696
    • Europe: 3,230
    • South America: 2,845
    • Asia (excluding the Middle East): 2,710
    • Sub-Saharan Africa: 2,238

      That information is from the 2005 It's All Connected: A Comprehensive Guide to Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions book from Facing the Future: People and the Planet.
  4. Divide class up using the same percentages of world population for each continent as the number of students assigned to the continent. Then explain to the students what consumption of world resources means. Ask them what percentage of the world resources they think Asia uses. When they get the correct percent, cut that part of the pizza put it on a plate and hand it to the Asia group. Repeat this with each continent. Afterwards ask the students what they think about this. Finally the continents can divide their share and eat!

Day 2

Materials

Procedures

  1. Ask students, “Do you know what poverty is?”
    • List all comments without judgment.
    • Read Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting and Somewhere to Go by Maria Testa
    • After reading each book, ask students to look at the list of comments and tell how the story describes poverty similar and different than they believed.
  2. Ask the students if they have ever participated in activities to help alleviate poverty in our area.
    • Tell the students that there is a way to help alleviate poverty (hunger) in our area by participating in an international program called The Empty Bowls Project locally.
    • Show examples of bowls and explain the project.

Day 3

Materials

Vocabulary for “Word Wall”: clay, ceramic, sphere, slab, smear, evaporation, green ware, fire, kiln, press mold

Procedures

Today students will make a ceramic bowl using the press mold technique.* 

Steps to make bowl:

  1. Put masking tape on the outside bottom of the plastic bowl and write name and class
  2. Place sheet of plastic wrap on the inside of the plastic bowl
  3. Pinch of a piece of clay and roll into a golf ball size sphere
  4. Press the sphere into the bottom inside of bowl
  5. Repeat step #3 and press sphere into a slab place adjacent to the first slab
  6. Repeat step #5 until the slabs reach the rim of the plastic bowl and then stop
  7. Pinch off small amounts of clay to fill in any holes (double check)
  8. Use fingers to smear the slabs together
  9. Use a small amount of water on fingers to smooth inside of bowl.
  10. Clean up.
  11. Place finish bowls under plastic so that they can dry slowly and not crack.  In a few hours the clay will shrink as it dries and the water evaporates.
  12. Take clay bowl out of plastic form bowl.  Use a tool to write students first name and last initial and year on the outside bottom of the clay bowl.
  13. Return clay bowls under the plastic to dry slowly and reuse plastic form bowls for another class.

*I also offer the staff an opportunity to make a bowl either with a class or at a workshop after school.

Day 4

Materials

Vocabulary for the “Word Wall”:  Glaze, bisque ware, silica.

Procedures

  1. First have students discuss the chemical and physical changes they note in the clay bowls.
  2. Explain a) what happens to the clay in the firing process b) how glaze and paint are similar and how they are different and c) the procedure for applying glaze to the bowl.
  3. When 3 coats of glaze have been applied and the bottoms of the pots have been wiped, let students place the bowl in the kiln. (I usually assign 1 or 2 students the job of loading the kiln.)
  4. Clean up. 

Additional Procedures

Informal/Formal Assessments:

Ceramic Bowl Rubric

3 points

2 points

1 point

0 points

Ceramic Bowl

No holes and
1/4 “ to 3/8” thick and
smooth interior, no seams show and
rim finished

1 hole and
is paper thin or too thick and
bumpy interior and/or
rim unfinished

2 holes and
paper thin or too thick and
rough interior and/or rim unfinished

has more than 3 holes and
is paper thin or
is thicker than 3/8”and
very rough interior

Glaze

Applied evenly

Some areas applied thinly

Most areas applied unevenly

Some areas have no glaze

Participation

Raised hand during class discussion more than 3x and participated in clean up and set up and all activities

Raised hand during class discussion at least 1x and participated in clean up and set up and all activities

Participated in clean up and set up

Never raised hand and  did not participate in clean up and set

A = 8-9 points

B = 6-7 points

C = 4-5 points

D = 2-3 points

F = 0-1 points