ABSTRACT

  June Julian, Doctor of Education, 1997
  Major: Art Education, Department of Art and Art Professions, New York University
  Title of Dissertation: Ecology Art Education On-Line: "A World Community of Old Trees"
  Directed by: David W. Ecker 

  "A World Community of Old Trees" is an ecology art project on the 
  World Wide Web with open participation and a special section for students in 
  grades K-12 and their art teachers. The purpose of this on-line study is to 
  examine the potential of the Web as a medium for communication and exchange 
  for ecology art education.

  As aesthetic inquiry, this research is a metacritique of past ecology art projects 
  on the Internet. Earlier projects used e-mail for instructions and promotion, 
  and exchanged student art work at the conclusion via regular mail. Using David 
  Ecker’s Matrix of Generic Questions for Curriculum Research as the navigational 
  tool for on-line research, " A World Community of Old Trees" responds 
  to his third question, "What could be the case?" The new project develops 
  former on-line projects on six points: participation, interaction, content, 
  promotion, information collection and distribution, and evaluation. It engages 
  a global community of learners in identifying, writing about, and documenting 
  with visual images, the oldest trees in their environment. 

  Philosophical bases for this process are the biocentric ecology of Aldo Leopold 
  and the environmental aesthetics of Arnold Berleant, both of which employ vivid 
  description and deep personal relationships with nature.

  The research project has three main components. Participants can contribute 
  to the Tree Gallery, containing tree imagery in a variety of media with accompanying 
  text, to the Tree Museum, with Web Sources and Print Sources, and to Tree Talk, 
  containing information on tree ecology, a Fill-out Survey Form and a Comment 
  Form, and an E-mail Archive. 

  Evaluation of the project is based on six objectives: potential, interaction, 
  cross-cultural participation, community, ecology, and openness. Recommendations 
  to art teachers as to "What should be the case?" are based on William 
  E. Doll’s post-modern perspective on curriculum development where each 
  teacher is both a creator and an implementor of curriculum.