Each year, fifth grade students at Ypsilanti International Elementary School (YIES) present a capstone project encapsulating the "central ideas" they've been exploring all year. This year, those final presentations will benefit from art and design insights courtesy of students from the University of Michigan (U-M) Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design.

YIES, located at 503 Oak St. in Ypsilanti, is part of the Ypsilanti Community Schools system, but it has a unique international baccalaureate (IB) curriculum called the IB Primary Years Programme (PYP) for children aged 3-12. The International Baccalaureate Organization offers project-based, interdisciplinary programs for middle schoolers, high schoolers, and adult learners.

YIES fifth grade teacher Melanie Eccles says that pupils engage in six different units of inquiry each year, but "they go to different levels or depths" based on their year. Fifth graders do a capstone project and exhibit as part of the PYP. Eccles says that, instead of having teachers forming lines of inquiry and teaching research skills, students develop these and more on their own through project-based learning around a "central idea" with the guidance of their teachers.

U-M students from the Stamps school are in their fourth semester working with pupils at YIES, through a course in community collaboration taught by Stamps School professor, lecturer, and Engagement Programs Coordinator Melanie Manos. This year will be the first that the resulting artwork is included in the fifth graders' capstone projects. Not only are the fifth graders benefitting from the collaboration, but so are the U-M students.
5th grade YIES students in Melanie Eccles' class working on their capstone projects.
"A few of the college students are elementary education majors, so this is very practical teaching experience," Eccles says. "It's just a really good perspective, getting to see the world through the lens of 10- and 11-year-old students. ... It helps them think about how they can communicate in a way that opens up the world of art and the media involved and share their passion."

Manos says the course she teaches follows an overall trend towards increased community engagement over the last few years at U-M.

"They're asking students to move outside of the campus bubble and be active citizens," Manos says. 

Specifically in the Stamps School, there's a requirement that students take a three-credit community engagement course. Those collaborations can take different forms, and Manos says she makes sure students in her "Art Connections in the Classroom" course spend time "getting to know the community partners and their needs and desires."
U-M Stamps School professor Melanie Manos.
"We're teaching our students what it means to be a conscious, aware partner, not coming in and making all the decisions, but listening to the wisdom of the community they're working with," she says.

She says the students are both learning about community engagement and filling a gap left by the shortage of funding for the arts at the high school level when budgets are tight. 

"I'm teaching them to teach. We talk about pedagogy, how to set up prompts for a project to engage fifth graders' imaginations," Manos says. "We want to give the fifth graders a lot of leeway so they can be the agents of their creation. This semester, we're supporting their efforts with ideating and deciding what materials would best express their idea, and helping them realize those ideas."

Eccles says the fifth graders and university students have been exploring different artistic media and expressions, and different artists. 

"And they typically try to tie their lessons into something we're doing in our unit of inquiry," Eccles says. 

Fifth grade pupil Linden Conroy says she thinks it's "cool" to learn new techniques, and says she has a new appreciation for painting.

"I used to be terrible at painting and did not know anything about it," she says. "Now, me and my dad bought watercolor paints so we can practice."
Stamps School students helping YIES students work on artwork for their capstone projects.
Both she and another student discussed how they could use a color gradient technique they'd learned in their final project, which will be a display board similar to those used in science fairs. 

Eccles says the U-M students also helped YIES students develop and support their "central ideas," an IB curriculum concept that Eccles says relates to a "global problem that any child around the world can understand."

"Then we talk about what advocacy or action we could take to solve that problem," she says.

Fifth grader Liam Burdette-Dohn says he wants his project to center on "how violence is affecting our mental health and how maybe we can change that." He says he's "not artsy-fartsy, but that gradient thing, I thought that was pretty cool."
5th grade YIES students in Melanie Eccles' class working on their capstone projects.
Mental health is a popular topic with the fifth graders, including Tillie Groff. 

"My central idea is that social media can negatively impact the mental health of users," she says. 

Her classmate, Rosalie Beal, says she's concerned about the negative impact of stereotypes about those with mental health challenges.

Sydney Fortson says she's planning to explore how gender and race intersect in the success (or lack thereof) in the art world.
Stamps School students helping YIES students work on artwork for their capstone projects.
"There aren't many great women artists, especially not great Black women artists," she says. 

She says she liked learning art theory concepts, like the color wheel, because knowing what colors go together well will help her design a final project that pops.

Eccles sums up the fifth graders' year-end exhibition as the result of "exploring their own passion project, figuring out where there are problems in the world and what solutions might exist."

On April 11, the students from Eccles' class and two other fifth grade classes display their final projects so that younger pupils can see them. Eccles says the fifth graders will be practicing their public speaking skills in advance of that exhibition and a dinner the same evening for parents.

Sarah Rigg is a freelance writer and editor in Ypsilanti Township and the project manager of On the Ground Ypsilanti. She joined Concentrate as a news writer in early 2017 and is an occasional contributor to other Issue Media Group publications. You may reach her at sarahrigg1@gmail.com.

All photos by Doug Coombe.