Eighth Grade ‘Climate Quilt’ Celebrates Environmentalists

An appliquéd quilt titled “Climate Heroes in Action” made by students in SHS Middle School art teacher Lauren DiCioccio’s eighth grade Studio Art elective celebrates individuals “devoting their lives to seeking solutions to the climate crisis,” said DiCioccio.

 

It’s the second year in a row the elective has offered students an opportunity to make a large-scale “art quilt” for exhibition. The finished piece will comprise 20-plus quilt blocks—featuring at least one block made by each of the 20 students in the class—and will be exhibited at the end-of-year P-8 Art Show that runs May 3-10.

 

Students learn textile art skills such as embroidery, using a sewing machine, transferring hand-drawn designs to fabric using a light tracing box, hand-stitching appliqué, and bonding fabric using heat transfer. At the same time, students exercise knowledge gleaned in social studies courses by selecting and researching a climate activist. The young artists then carefully compose a design for their blocks incorporating colors, symbols, textures, or wording that represent and honor their chosen individual’s activism.

 

Last year, students in the course created an “Equity Quilt” featuring changemakers who strove to make progress for equal rights, as well as “pointing out issues where we still have a lot of progress to make, from the civil rights movement to gay marriage to transgender rights, to animal rights and more,” said DiCioccio.

 

Both quilts are intended to align with the school’s Goals and Criteria, particularly Goal III: “A social awareness which impels to action.” The class focused on Goal 3.4: “All members of the school community accept accountability for the care of God’s creation, practice effective stewardship of the earth’s resources, and work to alleviate the climate crisis.”

 

DiCioccio strives to design art projects from the perspective of the school’s Goals and Criteria to help the goals resonate with students.