Divers of the Deep
Project Objective
Students will create a mixed media self-portrait of themselves as scuba divers exploring the ocean. Through reading, painting, and collage, they will explore the ocean's beauty and how we can care for it. This lesson combines storytelling, self-identity, and environmental awareness using a wide variety of colors, textures, and creative choices. This inspiring book tells the story of Eugenie Clark, a scientist who broke boundaries and explored the world of sharks. This read-aloud helps spark student curiosity about ocean life and the importance of protecting our oceans.
Required Materials
Age Group
Resources
| Step One
On Day 1, students will begin by listening to the read-aloud Shark Lady by Jess Keating, which introduces the importance of ocean life and conservation. After the story, students will create multiple sheets of painted paper using cardboard scraping techniques. They will make ocean paper using shades of blue and white to mimic water, sand paper with brown, yellow, and white, and seaweed paper using various greens. Students will also make an additional sheet using analogous colors like orange, pink, and purple for coral. All painted papers will be set aside to dry. |
| Step Two On Day 2, students will focus on creating their skin tone painted paper. Using a mix of browns, reds, yellows, and whites, students will experiment with color mixing to find their own unique skin tone. This paint will be applied to a 6×9″ paper that will be used for their scuba diver’s face, arms, and legs in later steps. |
| Step Three
On Day 3 students will begin building their ocean scene background. Using their previously painted papers, they will tear or cut strips about 2×3 fingers wide. They will glue down the brown sand paper along the bottom of a 9×12 background, add seaweed made from green paper, and layer optional coral pieces made from analogous-colored painted paper. This background will represent the underwater environment and serve as the foundation for their scuba diver. |
| Step Four
On Day 4, , students will complete a guided drawing of their scuba diver self-portrait. On one half of their dry skin tone paper, they will draw a head with facial features, a torso with arms reaching outward, and goggles. On the other half, students will draw their arms and legs separately to allow for easy cutting and repositioning when assembling their final artwork. |
| Step Five
On Day 5, students will assemble their full artwork. First, they will cut out their drawn scuba diver parts and glue them in a diving position on the background. Then, using 3×2″ pieces of construction paper, they will design and decorate a swimsuit with oil pastels and create folded flippers from a second paper. To complete the scene, students will cut out 7–10 small fish from 1×2″ construction paper, decorate them using oil pastels or paint markers with fun lines and facial expressions, and glue them throughout the background. The final result will be a vibrant, personalized underwater collage featuring each student as a deep-sea explorer. |
