ART AND GEOSCIENCE AS TRAVELING PARTNERS: ART AND EARTH SCIENCE IN ITALY

How can faculty from a liberal arts institution instill knowledge and appreciation for the fine arts in their science or technology-interested students while encouraging art students to embrace the wonders of the natural world through understanding and study?

Prior interdisciplinary experiences with art and science prepared us well for a very successful interdisciplinary study abroad course entitled “Art and Earth Science in Italy.” The course itself was designed around four goals. First, we wished to demonstrate to our students that to be engaged in and benefit from a true Liberal Arts experience they must make connections among the subjects they take. Second, we wished them to undertake this liberating approach while immersed in a foreign setting (Italy) rich in the content of our course. Third, we wished to bring back to our two-year transfer campus colleagues a different model of interdisciplinary teaching and learning. Fourth, we wished to assess the impact of this experience on our students and us.

Online instruction during spring semester includes basic information about Geoscience, Art and Art History of Italy. There is also information of a technical nature concerning the basics of how to draw and paint. The expositions were discipline specific but juxtaposed to give the students a feeling for how the exploration of art can yield valuable insight into the science and vice versa. Without the online portion it would have been difficult to provide the students with this rich background.

The travel occurred over two weeks immediately following the Spring Semester. Places visited included Venice, Florence, Naples and Rome. Major art museums and sites of interest to geography and geology in the vicinity of these places were visited. Sites that had particular significance to both such as the Cararra marble quarries or Pompeii were purposely included. Most sites offered opportunities and landscapes conducive to the production of art. Students also kept journals.

The course concluded with a summer capstone activity involving presentations of portfolios of student art and student reflections on the geoscience.