In late spring, I was given the opportunity to partner with the Smith College Museum of Art to create and facilitate a water inquiry exploration for preschool-aged children, inspired by Maya Lin’s “Mappings” collection.
Photo Gallery
Background / Context
I spent my formative years at Seattle Country Day School, an inquiry-based school serving gifted students aged kindergarten through eighth grade. Since leaving, I have sought out similar inquiry-based programs elsewhere. These experiences, combined with my background as a preschool teacher and nanny, sparked a curiosity in how inquiry could be implemented for younger ages, and I was thrilled to partner with Carol Berner to expand the Water Inquiry Project to younger audiences.
In designing this exploration, I drew inspiration from “The Case of the Missing Ducklings,” both in terms of the vehicle used for inquiry — (rubber) ducks, in this case — and storytelling as a model for investigation and exploration.
As I firmly believe that the most effective instances of inquiry-based learning are deeply rooted in both place and community, I was excited to collaborate with the Smith College Museum of Art to create a family program.
“What’s the Mission Here?”
These were the first words out of Nate’s (names have been changed to protect the privacy of children) mouth as he surveyed the rubber ducks floating at his feet, and I immediately knew that my lesson plan was in trouble.
While I had spent weeks carefully curating a lesson plan designed to lead pre-kindergarten-aged children through an exploration of the way water moves and how that relates back to the Maya Lin: “Mappings” exhibition at the Smith College Museum of Art, my scripts and prompts were no match for the energy of the three four-year-olds that stood in front of me.
They wanted to touch things, experiment with things, know things, and they wanted to do it all now.
As is the case with any age, but most noticeably with younger students, working with preschoolers requires a certain level of planned opportunism; while you need a general plan in order to situate the children within a concept, you must also have the flexibility and humility needed to embrace the impromptu ideas and curiosities that will inevitably emerge.
Inspiration
Touring “Mappings” by Maya Lin at the Smith College Museum of Art — coupled with the wonderfully wet Massachusetts winter — reignited my own love of and curiosity surrounding water. I have always been fascinated with water: the various forms it can take, the myriad of ways in which it engages the senses, and the artistry of it.
As I adjusted to life in a place very unlike where I had grown up, I became intrigued with the idea of water as landmark and how the physical boundaries set by water define the spaces we inhabit.
Although I loved all of Lin’s pieces, I was especially taken by the piece Pin River—Sandy, which depicts the floodplain of Hurricane Sandy, and I wondered how I might depict similar water movements in a way accessible to young children.
The Process
I experimented with various, child-friendly ways of recreating and preserving water tracks and discovered that liquid watercolor, slightly diluted, was the most reliable medium.
With friends, I poured watercolors down pieces of paper, slanted to mimic hills; blew paint through straws as though we were the wind; and dropped paint onto wet paper to watch how the pigment spread. This process gave me more than stained hands, it gave me firsthand insight into the resiliency that inquiry requires.
No matter how prepared I felt, I knew that my plan would hold little relevance when put into action with children: from hiding the ducks around the lawn for a massive scavenger hunt to dumping cups of water down the ramp, they had their own needs and curiosities that had to be incorporated into my plan in order to fully connect with the content.
It was swept along in this journey of true enthusiasm and pure wonder that although different from what I imagined, Mission: Water inquiry became a resounding success.
Key Takeaways and Questions
Overall, I was both pleasantly surprised by the different ways the young children viewed the water and how they characterized the shapes it made. While I might have just seen abstract shapes in the small rivers, the children saw it differently. “That looks like pants,” said one child. “It looks like trees,” said another, and then they were off, imaginations racing as the water on the ground contorted itself into fantastical images.
Although I initially cringed at the wet mess we were making, the children seized upon the opportunities in front of them, using the spilled water to make footprint tracks down the ramp. In doing so, they expanded their understanding of the many roles that water can play, as well as my own: water was now a conduit, a medium to replicate other shapes.There is so much to be learned in play, as the greatest learning occurs in the unscripted, unplanned moments, where the children beat you to the question and run off with their own ideas, and I am grateful to the children who participated in Mission: Water Inquiry for guiding me on this journey.
Acknowledgements
This project would not have been possible without Carol Berner, my wise and patient mentor; the unflappable Gina Hall, Educator for School & Family Programs at the Smith College Museum of Art; the Smith College Museum Educators, the community members who participated, and the entire staff at the Smith College Museum of Art who opened up their doors to young children (and tolerated ducks being hidden throughout the Maya Lin exhibit)
About the Author
Tamarin Camp is a STRIDE Scholar at Smith College, where she studies early childhood education and political science. A native of the Pacific Northwest, she thoroughly enjoys water in all forms.