A Color Expedition
School: The College School
City/State: St. Louis, MO
Grade(s): Pre-K
Format(s): Photography
Subject(s): Science and Technology, Visual Arts
Project Overview
These digital photographs were created by pre-kindergarten students at The College School, located in St. Louis, Missouri. As part of a Learning Expedition on color, students went on class walks to look for specific colors, noticing where in their community colors happened.
To capture their observations, these young students learned how to use digital cameras to take well-composed photographs, and then to use computers to download and print those photos. As three and four-year-olds, many people would not predict their capacity for such careful work.
As you look through the photographs, notice the freshness of the different pictures. These young photographers brought a unique eye to the composition, the perspective, the focus and the subjects of this set of pictures.
These digital photographs were originally displayed as part of a gigantic wall collage.
As another aspect of this Learning Expedition, students also collected “found” objects that represented the different colors. Students created a second, wall-sized color collage of found objects, with sectors arranged by color.
How This Project Can Be Useful
- Exemplifies taking typical pre-K content and revolutionizing the means through which young students explore it
- An amazing example of the capacity of three and four-year-olds, and by extension, all ages of elementary students, to capably employ digital photography
- Highlights the unique the interests and aesthetics of young children, as captured through digital photography
- Provides an example of young students exploring their community, through an authentic research project
- Notice the uniqueness of some of the photos. The photo of the street sign is a unique perspective, clearly taken by a very short person; many photos show the extreme close-up attention to detail of young, small photographers; the hub cap is an unusual subject, and shows the interests of a young person while also capturing symmetry
- See the introductory page which features photos of the student photographers taking the pictures – this gives you a real sense of the size and age of these students. Including a page like this in a product orients the viewer to the impressiveness of this undertaking