TEXAS AS ART: SCIENCE ENGAGEMENT THROUGH STATE PARK-FOCUSED ART EXHIBITS (Invited Presentation)

TexasView is a member of the AmericaView educational outreach consortium, which advances Earth Science education with accessible Earth Observation resources. For the past four years TexasView’s PI has been engaged in a project to develop “Texas as Art”, which creates artworks using enhanced Landsat imagery. The resulting images have been compared to “abstract expressionist-type painting, after the likes of Jackson Pollack”. The goal of the project has been to connect the public, teachers and professors, and their students with Texas' landscapes, ecoregions, geology, natural resources, and human impacts through art-infused exhibits and outreach events. State Parks, Wildlife Management Areas, Natural Areas, and other state managed lands have been geographic anchors for the artwork. This has allowed connections to extensive educational resource materials including publications, lessons, story maps, State Park web sites, YouTube video collections, and State Park Facebook pages developed by the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife (TPWD). TexasView has developed student-friendly, grade-appropriate, hands-on activities including games, quizzes, posters, and puzzles that directly link the artwork to the TPWD resources. These activities have been introduced to public, private, and home-school teachers through training workshops, and to students and families through museum exhibits and outreach events including nature festivals, science festivals, and Earth Day events. All of the materials including an annotated virtual art exhibit are freely available for viewing and for download in the “Watching over Texas from Space” digital publication, through the AmericaView website’s resources link.