AN IN ITIATIVE O F THE
IN PA R TN E R S H I P WI TH T H E
DANCE EXCHANGE
U.S. FOREST SERVICE
C A S S I E
M E A D O R’S
Moving Field Guide
A Teacher Training Toolkit FOR GRADES 3-5
S CH O O LYARD E DIT IO N
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VO LU M E 0 0 01 danceexchange.org
INTRODU CTIONS
FIELD NOTE FROM THE CHOREOGRAPHER: Dancing has always been a way for me to understand the world around me. As a dancer and choreographer who cares about social engagement and the resilience of communities, I was fortunate to find a home at Dance Exchange. Since 1976, this intergenerational company has been making dances about real-world topics and using art as a vehicle for learning and community building.
into inquiry, encouraging me to look at how my experiences could inspire communities to create new and needed relationships with the environment around them. Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to collaborate with climate scientists in Guyana, South America, where the rain forest became our laboratory, classroom, and rehearsal studio. I’ve danced with farmers, river keepers, and foresters. I’ve choreographed for the United Nations Climate Conference in Durban, South Africa, and along a 500-mile walk, tracing the source of the electricity that powers my home in our Nation’s Capital, to a mountaintop removal site in West Virginia.
When I joined the Dance Exchange in 2002, it was my dream job. I was getting to be a part of the company’s Through these encounters, I meaningful work in communities experimented and refined ways around the world. But we were for people to connect with nature, on the road constantly and learn about their regional ecology, realities of touring often left me and recognize our changing feeling little sense of connection planet through movement and to places I visited or to changes dance-making, ultimately leading in the environment around me. us to a partnership with the I spent much of my time in Forest Service. Collaborating with dark theaters, hotel rooms, and naturalists, outdoor educators, and airports, traveling from one city environmental leaders inspired me to the next. The only way to to create the Moving Field Guide. orient to the season was seeing photo by Matt Mahaney Many wonderful artists from Dance spring daffodils or autumn leaves Exchange, including our founder Liz Lerman, on magazine covers at airport newsstands. The have cultivated the ground where this work work was happening with such speed and in grows. We are composting some older ideas in so many directions that we rarely had time to the MFG, in hopes that they can grow in new consider, or even notice, what maybe mattered and vital ways, connecting us more deeply with most—that our planet was, and is, changing. our changing planet. Not just seasonal change, but large-scale ecological change caused by our human impact Remember, nothing is too small to notice. You on the planet. don’t have to go on a long journey or distant
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This nearly made me walk away from this career. I thought I might make a more meaningful contribution pursuing another path. Thankfully though, the values of Dance Exchange asked me to turn my discomfort
adventure to experience the beauty and complexity of nature. Creating positive change for the environment can begin in our homes, communities, and schoolyards.
M OV I NG FI ELD GUI D E, S CHOOLYARD EDITION
—Cassie Meador
INTRODUCTIONS
FIELD NOTE FROM THE FORESTER: that it benefits both art and science to share experiences and learn from each other.
photo by Jessie L Scott III
Learning and teaching science can sometimes be a dry exercise, but it need not be. Moving Field Guides are an effective way to actively engage students in the learning process. Integrating the art of dance into the teaching of ecology through the MFG enhances the experience that students have and improves the retention of concepts. Both scientists and artists look for ways to better understand the world and to express that understanding. Whether creating awareness of scientific knowledge or creating new works of art, both begin by asking questions about what they experience and both follow processes that include components of observation, analysis, interpretation, and communication. A scientist may practice these components as a sequence of steps, namely data collection, statistical analysis, synthesis of results, and publication of a technical article. Artists work in many different ways but often start with research through careful observation and analysis of a phenomenon of interest, followed by the synthesis of ideas into an interpretation in a particular medium that can then engage a public audience. This can empower people to connect on a personal level to the larger changes in our environment, leading to deeper understanding and a greater sense of connection. These parallels tell us
MFGs can act as a vehicle to merge the parallel processes. Introducing movement into the act of learning about ecology can help convey scientific concepts to students while stimulating more questions about the environment. That can lead to new scientific research aimed at answering those questions. Similarly, the scientific content may inspire the artists to find alternative means of interpreting and expressing what they see. From my perspective and experience, MFGs are an excellent way to get students outside, actively learning about the world around them. That is an essential step in education and in preparation to become active and involved citizens.
— Mark Twery
photo by Jer Banks
9 photo by Jori Ketten danceexchange.org