Hi everyone! We've added a new perk because we've run out of the 'Your Favorite Insect' and are nearly full on the color one.
Our new perk is a silkscreened poster, designed for this project and hand-pulled by one of our scientists and illustrators, Carly Tribull.
11 x 14 inches, on glorious red or traditional white paper.
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Thank you to everyone who has already contributed! We can't say enough about how much we apprecaite your support!
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Creating An Ant Comic
Our team of illustators & scientists are coming together to create an engaging learning resource for students that will help them be more sucessful in the classroom.
The anthology will be around 30 pages and will include a series of unique stories by our six illustrators. From leaf cutter ants in the tropical rainforest to ancient ants in the Jurassic Period, each comic piece will explore a different theme in the amazing world of ants.
Once printed, this comic will be used to reach over 240 students at three New York City public schools. We are all passionate about education and hope that you will join us in creating this comic so that we may insipire the next generation of artists & researchers.
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The Impact
This comic anthology will be used to teach students scientific inquiry skills and build thier understanding of how species interact with their environments. By using ants as a 'model organism' we can introduce other topics relating to ecology, climate and conservation.
We are working with two 6th and two 7th grade teachers to use the comic, along with other learning resources, in their classrooms. Students will use the comic in lessons and as a part of their sampling experiment of ants around their school.
This is in collaberation with the School of Ants project - a citizen scientist driven study of ants that live in urban areas, particularly around homes and schools. All resources, including the digital copy of the comic, will be available free for teachers & educators on the Your Wild Life lab website.
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Our Team
Andrew Collins - Graduate student at Columbia University
Phil Barden - PhD student at AMNH
Hugh Caldwell - Head Illustator at College Humor
Carly Tribull - PhD student & illustator at AMNH
Esa Ryngin - Entomology student & illustator
Katie McKissick - Author & illustrator of Beatrice the Biologist
Perrin Ireland - Science communicator & illustrator at the NRDC
Jess Stitt - Illustrator and Columbia Graduate Student
Illustrating & Printing
Our goal is to print two classroom sets of the comic anthology. This means 60 individual books that will travel with educators and be used in classrooms. We can increase our printing by meeting our major stretch goals! Because it is an anthology and not a single running story - each illustrator will contribute a comic ranging in length and content. Our anticipated date of printing is August 30th 2013.
We hope to reach as many students as possible and will therefore have a digital copy of the anthology free of charge online for teachers. Your donations will support both the illustrators who are drawing the comic and the printing of the antholoy itself.
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