Lunchtime CREST project
Level: Years 10-13
School: Gisborne Girls' High School
Teacher: Wendy Webb
Category: Extension Activity
Wendy had some enthusiastic students and was keen to teach them more skills than classroom time allowed. She also wanted to continue working with those students who had, reluctantly, dropped this option at senior levels. Rather than lose them completely, she decided to run an extension group every Tuesday at lunchtime.
She discussed the extension class with food technologist and CREST assessor Carol Pound, who suggested they do a Bronze team CREST Award.Wendy wanted the group to try weaving first and, with the help of a Creative Fibre representative who negotiated a good deal, and a Pub Charity grant, purchased ten basic looms.
After a half-hour lesson on using the looms, the girls spent a prolific fortnight making scarves. "That captured their imagination, it wasn't hard for them to pick up and they just loved it. They made a few mistakes at the beginning, but helped each other or came to the classroom and we'd quickly sort it out". Students took their looms home over the holidays and one reported that her brother also made a scarf after she'd taught him to weave.
The group was next given the task of working out a successful way of dyeing possum fur on the pelt. Through a relationship she'd formed with a merchant tanner during her Kiwi Made unit, Wendy obtained a box of free possum pelts.
At this stage the group had reduced to four core members, making it more viable for Wendy to give them a reasonably complicated task. They were each given a dyeing method to try – water bath, crock pot, pressure cooker and sun, and tested three different dye types.
The girls wanted to try 'natural' dyes so Wendy bought some cochineal beetles; they trialled the cochineal together with fibre reactive and cold dyes. The dyes were assessed on four qualities: evenness of distribution, colour fastness, authenticity of the colour, and the effect on the fur.
Wendy notes that there was quite a bit of chemistry involved in the dyeing process and while they didn't go into too much depth, she still covered some aspects with the students.
In preparation for working with the fur, the students each took some of the cold dyes and pelts home in the holidays. They used their dyed fur for making more scarves using the rete method. Wendy developed this after seeing it on the Seriously Twisted website, so it also served in a discussion of what constitutes intellectual property when copying a technique for personal use.
In all of their work the students were encouraged to have high production values. "We were looking to get the best quality in our product," said one student, "so we had to find out the best technique to give us that."
And, while being taught the rules of weaving, they were encouraged to be creative and not be bound by them. "I started off teaching them to be careful how to lay the weft, so that it doesn't fill in and shrink," says Wendy. "But, of course, now they are exploiting that as a design feature – the rules have all gone out the window".
"I've done about six scarves now and they've all been different, some wider or skinnier", said another student. "One is bit odd because it was pretty hard to put on the loom, it was all lumpy, so I just purposely let the scarf come out lumpy. Now that I've finished my class project I'm going to make more scarves, I'm going to give some as Christmas presents".
The students gained their Bronze Team CREST Award, and also the satisfaction of working on a successful outcome. "They loved what they were doing and there was never any hesitation about coming, although the teacher was thinking some days 'why did I ever do this?'"
Wendy plans to run an extension group again, encouraged that the school recognises it as fitting perfectly as a 'gifted and talented' exercise. She is thinking about including tanning a possum pelt, after seeing the student interest in the tanning kit a student brought from home.
Wendy is keen to enter the Science and Technology Fair, noting that a Technology project like this has some rigorous experimentation and a solid science base.
Links
www.crest.org.nz
www.creativefibre.org.nz/
www.seriouslytwisted.co.nz
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