MANCHESTER, New Hampshire—With the insights of engineers and the craftsmanship of carpenters, architect Frank Lloyd Wright saw his sketches take shape as three-dimensional structures. Today's artists and architects often employ newer tools of technology to move their ideas from the mind's eye into the real world.
At McLaughlin Middle School, computer literacy teacher Susan MacNicoll found an engaging way to merge art and technology. Along the way, her students also gained a better appreciation for local history. As MacNicoll explains, "The art and technology students collaborated to create a calendar which featured historic and architecturally unique buildings in our city."
Manchester, situated along the Merrimack River in southern New Hampshire, has a rich stock of architecture, from turreted Victorian homes to historic textile mills to contemporary skyscrapers of glass and steel. To launch the project, the school's art teacher used a digital camera to photograph local buildings of historical or architectural interest—such as the Zimmerman House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1950.
Next, art students used the photographs as source material to produce detailed pen-and-ink drawings. After the drawings were juried by the staff, the winning pieces were sent along to the school computer lab for the next phase of the project.
Students in the computer lab "scanned the work and created calendars to accompany the drawings," MacNicoll says. "We then bound the pages and created calendars to sell to the community."
The media picked up on the project, and stories in the local newspaper and on the radio sent sales skyrocketing—and student pride soaring. "Orders started flying in," MacNicoll says. As a new school, McLaughlin Middle School earned positive recognition from the community. "The project brought awareness to our school and the great projects we promote," MacNicoll adds. And as a bonus, the calendar project raised money for both the art and technology departments.
