Geography Students Get Creative with East Asia Research Project

Over the last two weeks, Ms. Sorenson’s 9th grade geography class has been learning about East Asia. Instead of a traditional test on the unit, she assigned a unique project where she let students pick a country and decide how they wanted to present their research findings. Students could choose to create a brochure, cooking video, art, or physical map. There was a wide variety of projects, but below are a few of the art submissions.

Sofia Bisono painted a picture filled with Japanese symbolism. Drawing inspiration from the Japanese art form - Kintsugi, where gold is used to repair broken vessels and create a new piece of art, she used this as a metaphor for the beauty and strength found in brokenness. According to Sofia, “The cherry blossoms on her dress represent hope and beauty, her makeup and style of dress is all from the Heian period or golden age of Japan, and the word written in Japanese says “kintsugi”, which is the Japanese process of fixing broken things with gold to make them more beautiful. This also references in humans how once we heal, we are more beautiful because of our brokenness.”

Lily Jadlot incorporated Kintsugi as it is traditionally applied to pottery. She related it to the Christian journey and how we all have flaws and brokenness that are made more beautiful through Christ. 

Sierrah Blackwell created a piece with ink and wash, a form of art started that originated in China around 600 AD.  Ink and wash tries to capture the spirit of the objects and not just recreate its image. It was one of 4 art forms required to learn as a main academic requirement for ancient Chinese scholars.

Riley Bunch recreated a Minwah style painting, a Korean Folk style painting that was popular around the the late 1300’s.  It usually had a tree as its main focus and included a lot of color and nature. This type of art was done by unknown artists without formal training.

Ethan Sipsma tried his hand at Japanese Calligraphy.  What he wrote is supposed to say geography.

Cameron Davis and Ariana Arjona both made origami, a Japanese art form that started when monks brought paper to Japan. It was originally used only for religious ceremonies. The crane has come to represent hope and healing in uncertain times. According to folklore, if one makes and strings together 1000 cranes, they will be granted a wish (possibly healing).