More than 100 students took part in the immersive event which included meeting QUT artists-in-residence Man and Wah Cheung, a tour of the William Robinson Gallery with viewpoints from art and geology students, microscopy workshops and journaling sessions.

The event created space for students to explore nature’s biodiversity and botanical structure from perspectives of both art and science highlighting the shared processes of creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, communication and collaboration within both areas.

Students explored the microscopic world of plants revealing the beauty, patterns and visual splendour of nature as seen by scientists and artists and discovered the process of documenting art and science through Art as Knowledge Nature journaling workshops.

Students Xana and Jessica, from Pine Rivers SHS said the event was quite different to what they expected and they realised that some people can be creative in science and some people can be practical in art.

“We thought we’d be doing some science workshops and then some art workshops but each workshop integrated both science and art” Jessica said.

The event was open to both art and science teachers. Murrumba State Secondary College teachers Kerrie Smedley (Head of Science) and Fillippa Lo Giudice (Senior Art teacher) attended the event and discovered new ways to work together.

“The event has inspired us to collaborate more. It has given us new ideas to work with.

“We have already talked about using the creative processes described by artist’s Man and Wah across science and art to help our students explore and communicate their different ideas.” Kerrie said.

Sara Sheather, Widening Participation Engagement Officer for the Science and Engineering Faculty, co-organised the event with QUT Precincts. Sara said the event was a great opportunity to work across disciplines and to help broaden high school student’s ways of thinking.

“The event helped students view both art and science from different perspectives” she said.

Sara says that plans are underway to run a similar event again in 2019.

Students from Kilcoy SHS, Murrumba SSC, Narangba SHS, and Pine Rivers SHS took part in the event. This event was supported by QUT Widening Participation, QUT Precincts, and the Science and Engineering Faculty. The program is a QUT Widening Participation initiative funded by the Australian Government’s Higher Education Participation Partnerships Program.

View event day images on flikcr https://flic.kr/s/aHsmv4f8MM

View microscopy images taken by the students on flikcr https://flic.kr/s/aHskNjavXy