Overview and Background

Students will attend a lesson on French artist Henri Rosseau. Art and science classes will then be paired together for a mini lesson on biomes, particularly the rainforest biome. Students will pick one plant that can be found in the rainforest. Working together students will create a hand drawn representation of a leaf from their plant. This drawn will be converted to a vector file, uploaded to Makerbot print and printed. The final step will be for the 3D leaf to be decorated appropriately.

Lesson Plan and Activity

The teacher will first book the Rainforest exhibit from Teacher’s Discovery (https://www.teachersdiscovery.com/product/23274/traveling-exhibits). Using this exhibit, the teacher will do a lesson on Rainforest, habitats, etc. for classes over the period of one week. These lessons will specifically be directed at art and science classes. However, other classes are welcome to participate in this experience. At the beginning of week two students from both science and art classes will be divided into groups with an equal number of participants from each class in the groups. These groups will, using computers in the Library Media Center, research the plants to be found in the rainforest. Each group will, after doing research on the specific plans to be found in the rainforest biome, pick a single plant they would like to model. The groups will create a hand drawn (authentic) representation of a leaf from their plant of interest. Using the website www.pic.svg the groups will create a scalable file (Scalable Vector Graphics) of their leaf drawing. That file will then be uploaded to Tinkercad. Once the file is in Tinkercad the file can be edited for height and dimension. Once the group is satisfied with the result, the file can be sent to the Makerbot to be printed. The students will take the printed object and paint it to authentically represent their specific flower. The finished projects can be mounted on a bulletin board in canopy order. (i.e. plants near the bottom of the jungle canopy are mounted lower on the board, etc.)

Materials Needed

Computer access (i.e. desktop. laptop, Chromebook, etc.)
Scanner
drawing paper
drawing media
Makerbot
Filament

Duration of Lesson

2 Weeks

Preparation

The teacher will first book the Rainforest exhibit from Teacher’s Discovery (https://www.teachersdiscovery.com/product/23274/traveling-exhibits). Using this exhibit, the teacher will do a lesson on rainforest, habitats, etc. for classes over the period of one week. The teacher, co-teaching with art and/or science teachers, will ensure that the 3D printer is function and filament is loaded. They will then explain the lesson

Rubric and Assessment

The project will be graded using the following:
● Peer grading 1-25 points (Average score of the other members of the group) 25 points
● Original drawing of the plant. 1-25 points 25 points
● Successful 3D print 1-25 points 25 points
Accurate representation of leaf 25 points.

Rosseau's Jungle