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    Each Lesson Kit
    Contains:

    · One PDF file giving lesson objectives and background
    · One Powerpoint file with a complete presentation to show your class
    · Printable posters with sample art
    · Printable collateral materials (such as worksheets)

    New Lesson

    JOURNAL YOUR OBSERVATIONS

    This lesson focuses on the skill and reward of looking at things very closely. When was the last time you slowed down long enough to concentrate for a period of time on one thing? Partici­pants will be asked to take two minutes to observe, describe in words or image something in the natural world, and then reflect on that experience. This lesson supports students in valuing one-pointed attention, the deepening benefits of “close readings,” and has crossover with natu­ral sciences.


    WATCH THE TRAILER FOR THE JOURNAL LESSON >

    New Lesson

    PRINCIPLES OF FLIGHT

    This lesson focuses on the importance of resistance to taking flight. Drawing on the physics of flight, students will consider how their own hopes and dreams “take flight.” Why is it necessary to have propulsion and resistance in balance for their dreams to soar? What does this look like in their own lives? This lesson crosses over with knowledge objectives in physical sciences.


    WATCH THE TRAILER FOR THE PRINCIPLES OF FLIGHT LESSON >

    New Lesson

    SEEDS

    This lesson centers on the possibilities contained in seeds. Participants reflect on how plant­ing one seed can result in the growth of thousands more beautiful plants. Using plant seeds as a meta­phor, students consider their thoughts as “seeds” and ask: ‘What thought seeds do I want to plant in my own heart and mind and in the world? How will I cultivate them?’ This lesson has crossover possibilities with knowledge objectives in environmental science.


    WATCH THE TRAILER FOR THE SEEDS LESSON >

    New Lesson

    IS THIS MIRACLE ENOUGH?

    How do we traditionally think about miracles? This lesson asks participants to consider the miracles in front of us every day, giving us new eyes to see the world and its phenomena with wonder, awe, and respect. This lesson can cross over with knowledge objectives in biologi­cal sciences.


    WATCH THE TRAILER FOR THE MIRACLE LESSON >

    LOVE: Send your Message of LOVE to the World

    Using quotes about LOVE by great peacemakers like Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, or even the Beatles, students think about what the word LOVE means – the choice to act with kindness, compassion and affection. Students make Valentine art to send a message of love to the world. Projects involve making a collage incorporating Valentine imagery with decorative “illuminated” type.


    LOVE Lesson Discussion questions:


    · What are some of the emotions we feel when we have LOVE in our heart?

    · Can you LOVE someone even if you don’t like them?

    · What are some ways that you can show LOVE?

    · When you are loving, are you peaceful?

    · Do Love and Peace go hand in hand?


    WATCH THE TRAILER FOR THE LOVE LESSON >

    SANCTUARY: What is your place of peace?
    Based on an ancient Chinese proverb, “If there is to be peace in the world…there must be peace in the heart,” students consider the meanings and importance of having places of refuge and safety. They make folded paper triptychs (or accordion fold books) depicting places where they go to find personal peace – what it is and when and why they go there. 

    SANCTUARY Discussion Questions:
    · What makes you feel protected and safe?
    · Do you have a place you like to go to find peace? Tell us about it.
    · How does a SANCTUARY make us feel?

    RESPECT: Honoring others, revering the world, valuing oneself 
    Based on a line from a Lakota Sioux prayer, “Make my hands respect the things you have made,” students talk about the meaning of RESPECT and where they would like to see more of it in the world. They create 12” circular RESPECT art using colored papers and inspirational quotes to depict what they think deserves respect. Art is displayed in public venues – like a school or a place of worship – with the intent to make RESPECT go viral in a time that is fraught with hate, fear and anger. 

    RESPECT Discussion Questions:
    · What are some things you respect and why?
    · What are some examples of how YOU honor living things?
    · What are some things you think might need more respect?
    · If you had the power, where would you spread RESPECT?

    HOPE: Steppingstones to Achieving Life Goals
    Is hope innate or learned? Is it a feeling or an action? (Spoiler alert: the answer to each is “both!”) Students engage a four-step process that they can use throughout life to foster resilience and maintain wellbeing as they work to achieve life goals. The art project involves creating a postcard to one’s future self. This lesson is based on the research of Dr. Valerie Maholmes, Chief of Pediatric Trauma at the National Institute of Health and Child Development. 

    HOPE Discussion Questions
    · What is hope?
    · What do you do to feel hopeful?
    · What makes you feel hopeless?
    · How do you bring hope to a friend?
    · What do you want to feel more hopeful about?

    THRIVE: Creating a Garden of Peace

    How do gardens create places where living things – plants, insects, flowers, or even you and me – can thrive? In this lesson, students learn about different kinds of gardens, such as Zen gardens, vegetable gardens, rock gardens to contemplate how nature and the outdoors provide places of peace and relaxation as places for dreaming, meditation, playing, or tending. They also take a lot of commitment and attention! Students use drawing paper and colored pencils or markers to design their own ideal “Garden of Peace.” Ideas for creative extensions include creating a maypole or a peacepole. 

    THRIVE Discussion questions:
    · What are some different kinds of gardens you can think of?
    · What do you do in a garden?
    · Do you know what THRIVE means? What does it take to make something THRIVE?
    · How do you feel when you are outside in nature? Do you feel more at peace?
    · What’s the connection between gardens and peace?

    HEROES & HEROINES: What makes someone a hero? Who is your hero?
    Student s consider character traits like loyalty, honesty or courage and actions like helping, protecting, putting others first, which elevate someone as an object of admiration and devotion. With the understanding that it doesn’t take fame or perfection to be a hero, students choose a person with special meaning to them as a role model and create representations using colored pencil, milky gel pens, glitter or bright patterns on black paper. 

    HEROES & HEROINES Discussion Questions
    · What makes someone a HERO or HEROINE?
    · What are the character traits of a HERO or HEROINE?
    · Do you have to be perfect to be a HERO or HEROINE?
    · Who are your favorite cartoon character heroes or heroines?
    · Who are your HEROES and HEROINES?

    COMMITMENT: Can one person make a difference in the world?
    The answer is yes, and the key to it is COMMITMENT. Students learn about peaceful ways to solve problems and how inner peace is an important part of spreading peace in the community and the world. Each student considers a realistic commitment they can make to peacemaking and creates a piece on which they write their commitment, and which can be displayed using magnets, tape or pins. This lesson can complement the UN Day of International Peace annually on September 21. 

    COMMITMENT Discussion Questions:
    · Can one person make a difference in the world?
    · Why is peace good?
    · Do you think that peace for one day is possible?
    · What are realistic commitments you can make to peace?

    GREAT PEACEMAKERS LIKE YOU AND ME: What is greatness?
    What makes a great peacemaker? This lesson presents 12 great peacemakers from around the world – from Desmond Tutu to the Dalai Lama to Cesar Chavez – and invites students to consider the ways that their genius for nonviolence has inspired the resolution of conflict in the world. Students use found objects that would ordinarily be thrown away to create portraits of these beloved figures, realizing that just like them, anyone can be a great peacemaker. 

    GREAT PEACEMAKERS Discussion Questions:
    · What qualities make somebody ‘Great?’
    · Can you be great at something, but not be a great person?
    · Do you have some of the same qualities that make someone a Great Peacemaker?
    · What is one non-violent thing you can do to behave like a peacemaker?
    · Does a Peacemaker change the world instantly?

    WONDER: What is our connection to water?  

    What happens when we get curious about water? This lesson presents an opportunity for students to tap into their inherent curiosity – especially wonder about natural phenomena. After contemplating the wonder of a grain of sand, the mystery of another person’s eyes, the essence of a drop of water, students create wax-resist art that symbolizes a question or expresses their curiosity about the precious resource of water. 



    CURIOSITY Discussion Questions:

    • What is curiosity?

    • What is an example of curiosity in your everyday life?

    • How can we be curious about water?

    • What can we learn from a raindrop?

    • How can “a hundred pure oceans flow from a raindrop?” 



    WATCH THE TRAILER FOR THE CURIOSITY LESSON >

    FORGIVENESS: How can a heart be healed?

    Each one of us is inherently good, but isn’t it also in our nature to build walls of separation – large or small? This lesson presents an opportunity to think about the things that happen that lead us to wall ourselves off from others and also ways we can take barriers down. It presents some famous walls around the world. For the art project, students use folded paper to create representational “walls”…as well as potential openings. 


    FORGIVENESS Discussion Questions:

    • What does it mean to forgive?

    • What are some petty behaviors that can be hard to forgive?

    • What are some serious things that are really hard to forgive?

    • What are some things going on in our world right now that are hard to forgive?

    • Can we forgive someone who hasn’t apologized or asked for forgiveness?

    • What is the personal cost of not forgiving?



    WATCH THE TRAILER FOR THE FORGIVENESS LESSON >

    DREAMCATCHER: Dream a dream for me

    Can we dream a good dream for someone we love? In this lesson, students learn about the Native American folk tradition of making dreamcatchers and how they are significant within the Ojibwe tribe. Students consider the breadth of the dreamworld and make dreamcatchers to give to another person, symbolizing their wish for happiness and safety for them. 


    DREAMCATCHER Discussion Questions

    • What does the word DREAM mean to you?

    • What is a good dream that you’ve had?

    • What are some bad dreams that many of us have?

    • What happens when we uplift someone else’s dreams?


    WATCH THE TRAILER FOR THE DREAMCATCHER LESSON >

    SOULS HIDDEN: Forces Within and Around Us

    Souls are hard to define and hard to discern. What is a SOUL anyway? This lesson presents fascinating questions like, what are different ways that various cultures have thought about “SOULS?” What happens when we bare our souls? And how do we stay connected with souls of those who have gone before us? Students then make assemblage art, a 3-D collage containing symbols expressing questions and beliefs inspired by “souls hidden.” 


    SOULS HIDDEN Discussion Questions:

    • What comes to your mind when you think of the word SOUL?

    • What are some situations in which you think SOULS are around us? 

    • What is a situation in which you bared your SOUL?

    • What are ways that you hide your own SOUL from yourself and others?

    • What can we do to connect with SOULS HIDDEN?


    WATCH THE TRAILER FOR THE SOULS HIDDEN LESSON >

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