Longueuil, Quebec

What is water?  What is a human catastrophe?  What is a natural catastrophe?  How does human activity influence our environment? These BIG questions were investigated by grade 5 and 6 students at St. Mary's Elementary School during a 10-month ArtsSmarts project.

Traveling back in time to begin with the Seven Years' War, students explored the ecological impact of human and natural disasters in a series of events centred around the theme of water.  Over the entire school year, students created a 45-minute multimedia puppet theatre megaproduction. The students' research on wars, oil spills, earthquakes, hydroelectric dams and hurricanes was used to develop a script and produce a theatrical production, Aquaventure, to reflect the subject matter.

Giant puppets were fashioned from recycled materials in the form of water creatures like jellyfish and sharks.  As students built the puppets to tell the story of what happens below the water's surface when an ecological disaster hits, conversations were sparked on habits of consumption.  Watercolour illustrations of a pirate ship were central to the creation of a short animated film.  Students acquired skills in computer technology and simultaneously used creative thinking methods and media literacy to communicate the social and environmental impact to their audience.

Our partner Riverside School Board brought artists Christine Battuz, Martine Bertrand, Elise Morin and Marc Sauvageau together with teachers Eric Boutin and Francois Couture to collaborate on the multi-stage development of this project.

The students at St. Mary's Elementary School thrive in this cross-curricular creative learning environment.  Through Aquaventure, the students brought history, science and language arts to life using animation, pupptery, fine arts, script writiting, dance, music composition and drama.  Complex and dynamic ArtsSmarts projects such as these engage students and enrich their learning experiences.  

Please note that the video clip is only available in French.