Engaging with Nature

Art and Nature

Information for Educators

Experience nature through a creative lens by exploring plants, paintings, books, glassworks, and more. Use artistic principles to analyze the natural world, and explore artworks inspired by nature.

Essential Questions

How can the elements of art help us to see the natural world in new ways?

How can we combine our observations and imagination to create artwork?

Does art need to be made by humans to be considered art? Is nature art? Can natural processes create art?

Key Understandings

Each element of art is present in nature.

Artists can take inspiration from the same plant and then use it to create very different artwork.

Observation and imagination are artistic skills.


Supported Standards

Common Core ELA

  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.7 Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.

National Core Arts Standards

  • NCAS Anchor Standard 1 Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.

  • NCAS Anchor Standard 2 Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.
  • NCAS Anchor Standard 3 Refine and complete artistic work.
  • NCAS Anchor Standard 6. Convey meaning through the presentation of artistic work.
  • NCAS Anchor Standard 7 Perceive and analyze artistic work.
  • NCAS Anchor Standard 8 Interpret intent and meaning in artistic work.
  • NCAS Anchor Standard 10 Synthesize and relate knowledge and personal experiences to make art.
  • NCAS Anchor Standard 11 Relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural, and historical contexts to deepen understanding.

Next Generation Science Standards

  • Patterns. Observed patterns of forms and events guide organization and classification, and they prompt questions about relationships and the factors that influence them.

Social Justice Standards

  • Identity 5. Students will recognize traits of the dominant culture, their home culture, and other cultures and understand how they negotiate their own identity in multiple spaces.

  • Diversity 9. Students will respond to diversity by building empathy, respect, understanding, and connection.