Student Gallery

From artifacts to portraits and landscapes of the living world, explore student artwork to encourage meaningful conversations in the classroom. Learn how to use the gallery.

Use Image Analysis Activity

Romina Arredondo (age 18)

Naucalpan, Mexico

The Face of Progress

A leaf rotten from its center.
A dark stain that at its fervor steps burns.
A leaf without precedents nor relations.
I am the only witness of its existence.
And even though I don’t watch, it lives and dies.

Observant, I find the stain taking shape in its expansion.
Clouds of steam push towards the edges of the leaf
Unpainting every green brush stroke with indifference.
Agonizing, the leaf talks to me through its pattern
and its drawing has the face of progress.

Two sentences inspired the creation of my project. Linda Hogan wrote, “What a strange alchemy we have worked, turning earth around to destroy itself, using earth’s own elements to wound it.” And, Wendell Berry wrote, “The environment is in you, it’s passing through you, you’re breathing it in and out, you and every other creature.” Both statements address the arrogance and impudence of human beings who feel that they are the owner of everything and then become destroyers. The process that I carried out to embody the idea was to put an acetate with a photo of a factory on a leaf of a plant called Pothos, so that it would be printed under the sunlight.

We find so many resources in the nature environment, and instead of taking care of and thank that source of wealth, man is coldly exploiting it. Hand in hand with the above, we have built a hierarchy in which we, as humans, are above everything and that is now part of our molding, so we ignore the fact that as living beings that make up the same world, we are equal. As individuals we exclude ourselves from what we consider to be resources, and we turn them into products that unbalance the environmental order.

Dylan Mong (age 16)

California, U.S.

My artwork is a “love story” to the planet showcasing the vulnerability and hope we all have. Four eggs in a tiny nest symbolizes a new hope for life. The mother bird laid these eggs at this location due to the lack of human activity around this site. I’d like my artwork to communicate freedom and excitement to the world. The anticipation for the pandemic to be over is represented with the goal of raising new life.

Melody Zhang (age 15)

New York, U.S.

The wind threads itself through the trees, whispering a song. Infinitely many songs join it: the sound of dripping water (melting ice), the crunching beneath your boots and your friend’s, a branch crackles, something moves in the bushes, two birds chirp and four crows join it, a car drives by but you’re moving away from it, taking the side path as it slopes down; at some point, you realize, the world around you is a stream. A stream of sounds, tastes, smells, colors, feelings.

A song that is noise and all. The earth sings a song that is a want, a need, a memory. The song is ephemeral.

Without thinking too much, you steadily step your way across the ice. It freezes in the winter, the mass of water becoming a field becoming a plate becoming a place. Here, the earth stops singing; the above and below of the lake is quiet, the pure white of the snow sitting on the surface undisturbed like a pearl—or an eye without a pupil.

It is looking; looking at nothing.

You know not what it had looked like years before, or decades earlier. You are confident that no one can know everything; knowledge comes in hundreds of people who all know too little until one being is formed from trillions of facts. You are one of these facts, your friend another, the unseeing eye the last.

The earth’s song starts up again: now, the wind scratches against your ears. It screams freely over the empty lake, no trees or mountains to divert it, not until you stand in the center of the lake and become a lightning rod. At the epicenter, the wind is so strong that it nearly knocks you over. It goes so fast that it rushes into your ears and SHOUTS,

and in that moment,
you realize:

The earth was never singing.
It was simply crying.

A need, a want, a memory.

Your friend begins to walk further. You blend in, but you are out of place. Without you at the center, there was no one to cry to (a want): just seventy miles of wind measuring a lake frozen in time, running circles around nothing (a need).

You stand still in the cries, raising your camera with reddened hands, your breath coming out like clouds. The shutter clicks; the shore on the other side sinks into blue, the white looking blindly at the gray sky, the whole thing empty except for one of the two people that heard.

(A memory.)

Jessica Zighelboim (age 16)

Florida, U.S.

The Greenhouse

As time has progressed, humankind has grown somewhat disconnected from the natural world, choosing the material world over the natural, but humans can never truly leave the living world behind. The majority of homes people live in now, especially throughout the U.S., do not traditionally include any sort of factor that keeps them continuously connected to nature, not in the way this greenhouse does. This piece is a photograph of the house of a neighbor of mine, an environmentalist and an advocate for the protection of the natural world. The owner has effectively and efficiently created a small ecosystem for all of these plants, birds, butterflies and more, to live and thrive in. The owner lives in unity with the natural world, allowing the plants to cover their home and flourish.

This incredible interconnectedness between humankind and nature is symbolized by the elegance of the vines and the way they stretch throughout the entirety of the home, keeping the person feeling grounded and connected to the earth. A sense of inner peace is apparent in the precise arrangement of nature as a whole, not seeming overgrown or restricted but perfectly balanced.

Anea Kennedy (age 15)

North Carolina, U.S.

Everything is Not Fine

My piece is what showed up in my head immediately when I heard 'the environment is in you'. I thought of the way the forests and trees are the lungs of the earth and how we are destroying and suffocating them. Factories' smokestacks emit air pollution as we breathe out carbon dioxide. Underground pipes carry water and oil like our veins carry blood under our skin. Tree roots communicate shivers of fear like our nervous systems when we're afraid. We carelessly demolish our planet that gives so much to us, that we are connected with, that enters us each time we breathe, and all the while we close our eyes and cover our ears and pretend not to notice. Every summer my family travels to northern Minnesota around lake Bemidji and Brainard, where new oil pipes are going in, running through Leech Lake. If those pipes leak they'll spread throughout all those lakes and pollute the water that holds so many family memories.

Gianna Gazulla (age 16)

California, U.S.

Unexpected Beauty

As quoted by Margaret Wolfe Hungerford, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” My photograph captures the unexpected beauty that exists within my community. It represents the significance of national parks in the United States and across the globe through the tangible aspects and genuine opportunities that they offer. These opportunities allow us as protectors of the earth to more fully form a personal connection with our planet—to be conscious about our actions and the impact that they have on the earth. My photograph was taken in Yosemite National Park, and though it doesn’t depict the popular imagery that many people associate with this national park, such as Half Dome or El Capitan, it symbolizes that beauty can reveal itself through lesser known, or unexpected, places.

It wasn’t easy to achieve this image, but the process reminded me that anything that is worthwhile isn’t easy—for example, protecting the Earth against climate change and environmental impacts. We have a responsibility to make sacrifices in order to call ourselves true stewards of the Earth, and during that process, we recognize the beauty that we are called to protect.

Lily West (age 16)

Maine, U.S.

Do you feel all the fish swimming to the surface?

"Do you feel all the fish swimming to the surface?" is a part of a small series of pieces about the beauty of and the destruction of the environment. As I learned more about the environment, I started to focus on whales and sea creatures. The ancient nature of whales is so clear in their size, the way their migratory patterns and song patterns work in communication with one another. There is something about the wisdom and knowledge of the oceans that these animals possess that would be lost if they were to go extinct, or their numbers were to drop greatly.

People have such little understanding of the ocean, which is why the whale's tail is all that is revealed. We do not, and simply cannot, know the waters to the same depth that they do. Also in the piece, there is a hawksbill turtle below the whale's tail. The beautiful pattern and colors on the back of hawksbill turtles inspired me to choose them as a species. Both of these animals have a history of endangerment. Humpback whales have made a major comeback since 1950 when their numbers dropped to 440. The current population is now around 120,000 to 150,000. In contrast, however, the hawksbill sea turtle is listed as critically endangered. They are in danger due to people hunting for their beautiful shells, among the other threats they face. The red lines are up for interpretation, but in my view, they show how much understanding of the oceans these creatures carry within them, and what it would mean for this to be lost. The beauty and wisdom of such animals are something that must not be destroyed.

Mustafa Toslak (age 18)

Michigan, U.S.

Nature is within the core of all of us. We are sometimes blind to it, and we decide to ignore it. It finds a way to grow and prosper in all of us. As an artist, I wanted to capture the way nature captivates me as a human being. I made jewelry out of copper, patination, and a strange medium, moss.

I think it is vital for us to understand that we cannot block nature out. It will always find a way to grow and become dominant in us. We are a part of nature. This illustration of the environment represents the comfort the environment provides for us. With the pandemic and global warming, this comfort is essential for human beings.

Paolo Fajer (age 18)

Mexico City, Mexico

I took this photograph in 2020 at the Inbursa aquarium. My dad is a photographer and he always takes me to these kinds of places to take pictures. Most of the time they are nature photos; be it landscapes or animals. This has always helped me to connect more with a reality that has been here longer than us; it is a completely different world that we rarely value. I think about how these beings are on the margin of absolutely everything that is human and are a gift of nature. While I am alive, breathing, aware of what I am seeing, this creature is also existing in the same frequency and energy, dedicating itself to existing. Although I have no way of communicating with him or relating to him in a human way, I feel a very real connection, a love that is not human-it is natural.

The love of coexisting in this same universe, the love of appreciating its beauty and feeling the energies that surround us, it is a love story that no matter how much I am living it, it is not mine; it belongs to everyone because we all coexist and live on this planet. From a being that is not aware of its own existence to that energy that we do not understand but feel—some call it god. I do not know what to call it. I feel this every time I see the way our world works, the very organic way of simply existing and being beautiful. This is my love story with nature, with this photo and with what I don't know, but I feel love and intrigue for. My message to the world is simple: Why disturb what is calm? Why damage what is part of us? Why destroy what is perfect and why not just try to understand it? We must learn to live this love story with nature.

Ellie Knight (age 16)

North Carolina, U.S.

The world creeps up on you in the most unexpected ways sometimes. In the beginning, you may not even notice any changes, but it makes itself known pretty quickly. The excerpt written by Robert Hass inspired this photograph as a reminder that the world wasn't always like this. My photo reflects our environment from two different times, one where climate change seemed as though it wasn't an issue and one where its stark existence is hitting so close to home.

I like to show my passion for photography through seemingly basic pictures that take on a double meaning. The side with trees looks way more lively than the reflection it shows in the water.

Climate change directly influences the way autumn appears—the warmer air stunts the development of coloring within the leaves. The noticeable delay in autumn color has caused the season to become a three-day homage. Most people know about climate change, but it goes without a word, just like autumn leaves. I noticed the significance of the color yellow, which can represent a joyful, energetic mood. The problem with our society right now is that no one has that spark of energy to save our planet; we've lost our yellow. To quote Hass, it is in our best interest to "recover an elder imagination of the earth." If my photograph could be used to communicate to my peers, I would want it to say that the world around us is the only planet we get. It's our only chance at life, and we need to get back to a time when these global forces weren't so life-threatening and find the yellow within ourselves to do what we can now. If you look closely at the reflection, you can see some raindrops. Those droplets, however, make the reflection a bit blurry. This documents my feelings by expressing that environmental issues, like climate change, are still a little blurry to me. Everyone starts somewhere, and there is always room to learn. The environment is in you, and you just have to make an effort to bring it out and show the world what it really means to you.

Grace Bonk (age 17)

Wisconsin, U.S.

My family and I were visiting the Upper Peninsula of Michigan earlier this year. My dad went to college in Houghton and my mom's family is from there, so it is a very special place for our family. In the moment captured in the picture, my dad, my little brother, and I were walking across the frozen parts of Lake Superior. From the shore, my mom was calling out to us to be careful, and my brother and I were chuckling off her warnings. We were filled with adrenaline with the possibility of the ice breaking and in awe of the beauty around us. This photograph represents the fragility of Earth's climate. Humans walk along the thin ice that is the Earth's climate—fully aware of their actions and the risk they bring—just to see how far they can push before the ice breaks for good.

Shelly Fatal (age 17)

New York, U.S.

I sought to illustrate the interconnectedness of humanity and nature by composing the human body as if it were a landscape. By highlighting organic abstract forms, I hoped to express a love story between the inner and outer worlds—how they are mirrored in each other and intertwined. By monumentalizing this organ, I hope to communicate how the outside world is not so different from the smaller ecosystems within us, and how we rely on both systems' unity to survive.

May Wu (age 17)

California, U.S.

My drawing carries a message of hope for the future of our planet’s ecosystem. The background shows the environmental consequences of war and pollution—the smoke and burning vehicles behind a girl holding a glowing earth in the center. My use of color symbolizes optimism: we can save the earth but we must come together to make change. The girl carries this message into the future. My piece raises awareness of the fragility of our environment and denounces those who cause harm to our one and only earth.

Ava Pecora (age 15)

Ohio, U.S.

This painting is the embodiment of being one with the natural environment. It is supposed to illustrate that nature is beautiful in every form—from the plants and atmosphere to humans and magical creatures. The green is meant to symbolize the liveliness and tranquility of forest life. Green has many different meanings, such as calmness, safety, growth, harmony, and most importantly, the environment. The figure has a deep emotional connection with the woods and is completely immersed in the environment. The area around them is abundant with forest plants and creatures. This makes for a certainly magical universe.

Amber Cypress (age 16)

Florida, U.S.

Silence

Being Indigenous, nature has always been an important aspect of my culture. In this photograph, the subject has a handprint on her mouth, symbolizing the ignorance of others and the silence of my people. "Respect the land" was a message passed down from my ancestors for generations. The land provides, it heals, and it is beautiful. Climate change is a major issue and has been for hundreds of years. My people fought for this land and they died protecting it. We won’t be the only ones affected by this issue: the animals are at risk, too. The animals are just as important as the land itself and we need to protect both. The reservation is home to many marvelous animals such as panthers, snakes, birds, and many more. There was a pipeline that almost ran through their home, destroying their chances of survival. The Keystone Pipeline was almost completed before it was shut down due to growing concerns. The pipeline would have run 100 miles through reservations across America, destroying not only our homes, but the home of animals as well. Climate change is a problem that still needs to be talked about today, and I want to be one to spread the message. My people were silenced for long enough, and we will not stand for it anymore. I refuse to remain silent.

Romina Arredondo (age 18)

Naucalpan, Mexico

The Face of Progress

Gianna Gazulla (age 16)

California, U.S.

Unexpected Beauty

Grace Bonk (age 17)

Wisconsin, U.S.

Dylan Mong (age 16)

California, U.S.

Lily West (age 16)

Maine, U.S.

Do you feel all the fish swimming to the surface?

Shelly Fatal (age 17)

New York, U.S.

Melody Zhang (age 15)

New York, U.S.

A song that is noise and all. The earth sings a song that is a want, a need, a memory. The song is ephemeral.

It is looking; looking at nothing.

and in that moment,
you realize:

The earth was never singing.
It was simply crying.

A need, a want, a memory.

(A memory.)

Mustafa Toslak (age 18)

Michigan, U.S.

May Wu (age 17)

California, U.S.

Jessica Zighelboim (age 16)

Florida, U.S.

The Greenhouse

Paolo Fajer (age 18)

Mexico City, Mexico

Ava Pecora (age 15)

Ohio, U.S.

Anea Kennedy (age 15)

North Carolina, U.S.

Everything is Not Fine

Ellie Knight (age 16)

North Carolina, U.S.

I like to show my passion for photography through seemingly basic pictures that take on a double meaning. The side with trees looks way more lively than the reflection it shows in the water.

Amber Cypress (age 16)

Florida, U.S.

Silence

Back to the Top

Student Gallery

Using the Student Gallery in the Classroom