1.3.4 Small Solutions for Big Problems
Studying collaboration across disciplines within climate crisis-related art projects can support learners in imagining how the arts could support climate action in their own subject area, or area of interest. The video Small Solutions for Big Problems [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] uses animation, illustrations and music to convey research around nanomaterials and their implications for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Animator Suzie Hanna explains in the accompanying brief documentary that ‘what we were trying to do was to put forward quite scientific ideas in a way that is not hyperreal, which is what you expect from a scientific animation, but to do something very textural, almost tactile’.
If you’re teaching climate crisis-related topics in a science discipline, exploring the techniques used in Small Solutions for Big Problems could support discussion of how animation, illustration and music could be used to convey other topics related to climate science. If you’re addressing the climate crisis through teaching in an arts subject, you could support students in storyboarding a video addressing a related topic of their choice, including choosing suitable music and illustrations to amplify the messages being conveyed.