The Science of Art at the Museum of Glass

While some schools go on field trips once or twice a year, classes at Seabury go on field trips more like once a month -- and in the Bridges program, it's once a WEEK. We prefer to call them field studies, because these trips are not the traditional end-of-unit celebrations we usually think of when we hear the word "field trip" -- they are opportunities to listen, ask questions, make connections, and open new doors to many new ideas, issues and areas of interest. In Bridges, we often START a unit with a field study, and in this case, the Bridges students got an introduction to some of the ideas we will be covering in a study of electricity later this year through Tacoma'a unique Museum of Glass.

Led by a museum educator, students conducted several experiments in class, learning about how different metals conduct energy and the different ways energy moves. They looked at some different chemical reactions and thought about how artists and scientists use chemically-created colors. Then, in a museum visit, students noted color, texture and patina in artworks on display in the gallery. They created art using copper and steel wire in a wrapped glass piece to represent how energy flows. Finally, they watched energy being transformed and moved as they watched glass artists at work in the museum's hot shop, noting the items the artists use to insulate themselves and block the transfer of heat while making glass artworks.