Spark 2019 Week 1
Land art On our first day together, we looked at aesthetically pleasing land art created by artists such as Nils Udo, Harvey Fite and Andy Goldsworthy. We noted that these artists used natural materials to build with, such as flowers, leaves, sticks and rocks. We also looked at work by the artists Adam Frezza and […]
Carnivals and Festivals Around the World: Spark 2018 Week 2
In our second week of Spark 2018, we’ve been exploring the traditions of festivals around the world. As our exploration took us around the globe, we found many commonalities between festivals: the continuation of tradition from one generation to the next; the chance to come together as a community to celebrate prosperity and good health; […]
Sustainable Architecture at Spark 2018
Building our Green City We began the first week of our Spark 2018 summer program with four empty expanses, and ended with a vibrant and bustling city! We started by talking about what it means to be green, and learned about a few sustainable energy sources, including wind, solar, and hydro power. With so many […]
Healthy soil ecosystem mural
At the end of our day, we sat down to remember the biodiverse ecosystem beneath our feet in the soil. We came up with many thoughts and made a mural to depict the biodiversity above and below ground. Many of us decided to include humans, ants, moles, and even mycelium fungal networks living together peacefully.
Music Inspired by Nature
We drew parallels between Andy Goldsworthy’s use of natural elements in sculpture to composers’ use of natural sounds in music. After listening to soundscapes of several environments on Monday, we listened to Pierre Schaeffer‘s Etude des chemins, which creates rhythmic patterns from train noises, and Hugh LeCaine’s Dripsody, which is derived from a recording of a drop […]
Balinese Shadow Puppet Show
We celebrated our last day of camp with a shadow puppet show using the Balinese-inspired puppets that the kids worked hard on. We gave the kids the settings of Mexico and Jordan (2 places we visited this week) and they came up with the roles and dialogues themselves! Some featured characters: the Storm spirit, the […]
Revisiting Efficient Uses of Natural Resources
Throughout the week, we have visited the brilliant chinampa farming setup in Mexico, Findhorn ecovillage in Scotland, the Green School in Bali, and the solar tents and desert-turned-food forest in Wadi Rum, Jordan. Along the way, we have learned about a number of sustainable and permaculture practices and how to use natural resources effectively, including […]
Caring for our mushroom log and why they are good for the environment
We looked at our mushroom log and discussed the vast fungal network in the earth, and why they are good for the environment. This included the 3 types of mushrooms- Mycorrhiza (beneficial to plants, like chanterelles and truffles), Saprophytic/decomposers (break down organic matter, like shiitake and portobella), and Parasitic (like the honey mushroom). We discovered […]
Healthy soil – What lives in the ground?
In 1 teaspoon of soil, there can exist up to 4000 species of organisms, such as bacteria, fungi, mites, and other creatures. We spent some time getting to know the marvels of a rotting log and the decomposers who live upon and beneath it. We learned that decomposers are group of organisms that function as […]
Art inspired by Jordanian solar tents
We turned our attention to another Jordanian project: Jordanian-Canadian designer Abeer Seikaly has developed an innovative solar tent for refugees. The tent’s design allows for rainwater collection, solar power generation, solar water heating for showers, ventilation during hot weather, and insulation during cold weather. The tent is made from light-weight “structural fabric” that is designed […]