Allison Butler

“Art at the Speed of Light” combines the fundamentals of intermediate drawing and painting curriculum with the Bio Medical Allied Health Magnet students’ honors physics curriculum, creating an interdisciplinary pilot course. The program allows students innovative opportunities to explore and study physics phenomena through a visual arts lens. To date, the drawing and painting projects borrow from various photographic styles. With the grant, unusual photographic technology, including video animation, will be incorporated into the program as an alternative way to study physics concepts such as momentum, velocity, light reflection, and refraction. With the interdisciplinary “triad” among physics, drawing/painting and photography, students will experiment with an exciting array of technology to create the striking photographic effects of backlighting, stop-motion, light painting and high-speed. They will also produce video-animated sequences as a final project and attend a field trip to the International Center for Photography in New York City.