2022-2023

Topeka

Winners

Elementary School

Aanya’s Artist Statement: “I am in grade 4. My topic for art and science project is - “How might your Experience with Extreme Temperatures be different from kids in other places around the world “. The extreme Temperatures are either very hot like “Heat Waves” or very cold like “Cold Waves” or “Snow”. I am presenting on one side how kids experience heat waves and on the other side cold waves or snow. One of the pictures I drew shows one kid dehydrated, sweating, and tired while on other side kid is wearing warm cloths and has frostbite. On the Heat waves side, I presented a Fan which is symbol of “need more cold air”. Another picture shows how kids are jumping into the pool to cool themselves. Many types of infrastructure are affected by extreme heat including our roads/rails and air travel. On the Cold waves side, I presented a wood fire that is symbol of “trying to get hot”. Other pictures show how life is affected due to cold waves or snow. Kids are wearing very warm clothes and roads are covered with snow and travel systems are being impacted. While working on this project, I learned a lot about Extreme temperatures and what to do I ever be in those conditions. It encourages me to be more creative and put my thoughts and ideas with my art. Whole process of project and recognition from previous year inspired me to do this project.”

Middle School

Claire, Brayden, & Kaelynn’s Artist Statement: “In our artwork, we drew how public transportation still works in a blizzard. We drew a bus behind a snow plow truck. The bus can only go on a road that is snowy once it is cleared, by the snow truck. In our artwork, we are trying to show that you should stay safe and wait to drive until the truck clears the road. We put the bus behind because it wouldn't make sense to put the snow truck behind the bus. We also put a house in the picture to show that the bus is picking up people to go to a safe place. We used new art technology by rubbing the pencil to make it look like shading. We hope people will learn to not go out in severe storms like this until the roads are cleared. We learned from this project that we have to agree and have conversations or else we won't work well together. It inspired us to make this our art project because lots of wrecks happen because people don't wait for the snow plow, and we are trying to prevent that.”

Pearl, Emma, & Heidi’s Artist Statement: “We drew a public transportation system that keeps working during a hail storm. We addressed the focus question in the artwork by drawing an underground subway and also showing that it's hailing above so they can see that people can be transported even in the most severe hail storm. The message in our artwork is that if you are ever in a bad hail storm and need to be transported then you can take the subway because it's the safest. We created our artwork in the way we did by putting the subway underground and the houses and stores above ground so you can tell what is underground and what is above ground. The art competition encouraged us to try new things and use new strategies and utensils like shading and directionality to draw our poster. We used shading to shade the background and the floor, we used directionality by doing arrows to show what way things are going. We hope people will take away and learn from this that hail storms are very dangerous to be in and if you ever need to get away from a severe hail storm you can take the subway. It's the safest way. We learned a lot about severe hail storms. We also learned a lot of new strategies and techniques to draw our project. The main thing that inspired us was are individual drawings that we mixed together and made our overall project.”

High School

Saida’s Artist Statement: “Our team addressed the challenge question by drawing people who were prepared and people that weren't prepared for the extreme weather that is occurring in this art project. Our team is trying to show or say the differences between people that were ready and prepared and people that weren't ready or prepared for a tornado. We created our artwork the way we did because we are trying to show how some people might not be prepared and it can be a big problem and it can lead to serious and dangerous situations. No, it did not encourage our team to work with art materials because some of our teammates already paint or draw so this wasn't anything new for them and for the other teammates drawing and painting isn't something that fascinates them or something they would like to do. For what it's worth we hope that our art work helps people learn to be more prepared and more cautious when it comes to natural disasters so they can be safe and cautious. What we as a team learned in this project and took in was to work together and to actually see or draw what can happen during a natural disaster and how it can affect someone's life. Our town and state (Kansas) inspired us to draw our art project. Here in Kansas we experience tornadoes in the country or out of town so we decided to draw tornadoes for our art as representation for extreme weather for this project.”

Isabella’s Artist Statement: “My artwork is based on the prompt "Draw a public transportation system (like buses & trains) that keeps running in a severe storm.” My artwork depicts this prompt by showing a bus trapped in a destructive flood, unable to keep moving. How my artwork was made: Originally, I digitally sketched my first draft from a reference picture. Then I started my first physical rough draft. I chose to use paint on a physical poster board as my medium. Big ideas: I chose a flood as my focus because it is a storm, I am most familiar with. I have lived in tropical areas my whole life and have been through multiple hurricanes. This allows me to have a background for my painting and connect with the prompt. Color symbolism: In my artwork, I connected meaning to the colors used. I chose red on the body of the bus to represent strength and perseverance no matter the storm surrounding it. I used gray to express the exhaustion and resilience displayed. I used yellow at the end of my bus to signify danger. Although yellow is generally used to portray happiness, yellow is also used typically with transportation to signal caution.”

Gavin and X-Zier’s Artist Statement: “We addressed the challenge questions by adding a "Blizzard Facts’’ to our project to not only make it more appealing, but more educational. In our artwork, the message was to show how it gets during blizzards in Kansas. It gets very hard to move around in the snow and there are very many accidents. We created the artwork the way we did so we can show how cold and snowy it can get. We included details such as buses and cars stuck in snow. This shows just how impossible it seems to move. We added buildings to show just how high snow levels could get as well. No, I don't think the artwork we made encouraged us to use different materials because these are just the supplies/tools we had to use as they are what our teacher instructed. However, if we did get the chance, I'm sure we would've much rather used colored pencils as they are easier to use. The message I hope people can get here is that even if you live in the hotter places (like Kansas), that never means that you can't have a blizzard. Or just any natural disaster for that matter. What we learned from this project is that blizzards are just snowstorms that last for 3 hours or more! What inspired us to choose a blizzard is because of the blizzard storm that happened a few years ago. That blizzard destroyed many fences, gates, animals, trees, landscapes and so much more. We hope to spread awareness to these types of disasters and show just how many they can affect all of our lives.”

Topeka

Runner-Ups

Middle School

Chase, Madison, & Izabella’s Artist Statement: “We chose the question about drawing public transportation during a tornado, so we drew a subway. A subway is the safest transportation during a tornado. We are trying to say that the subway will take you to a safe place away from the tornado. We created this artwork because a subway is the only public transportation for tornadoes that we know of. We hope people can make it down to the subway to get away. This art encouraged us to learn how to shade and use different colors. We hope people learn that the subway is a safe place to go for a tornado. This art encouraged us to learn how to shade and use different colors. After researching about a tornado we learned how dangerous they are and how big and fast they can get. We were inspired by this artwork because we like tornadoes and wanted to learn more.”

High School

Julia’s Artist Statement: “In order to address the question of how different people might experience extreme temperatures I decided to draw two people from the hottest and coldest countries around the globe in order to illustrate the difference in daily life and the environment. I got the data for my poster from 2021 statistics on the average annual temperature for Mali, Canada, and the Globe as a whole. While researching I learned that the average global temperature has been increasing by a rather large factor (0.32° F per decade) since 1981. For this reason, I decided to include the central message that not only highlights the diversity of global environments given the other two statistics but also that warns the reader against the possibility of losing this temperature range through climate change.”