LOOKING AND LEARNING PROGRAM

This program is made possible through the generous support of the Cameron Baird Foundation.

RICHARD SERRA (American, born 1939) Kitty Hawk, 1983 Cor-ten steel, 48 x 72 x 4" Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery. Mildred Bork Connors, Edmund Hayes George B. and Jenny R. Mathews and General Purchase Funds, 1991

LESSON PLAN: THE MIRACLE AT KITTY HAWK

Based on: Richard Serra’s sculpture, Kitty Hawk, in the permanent collection of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery

INTRODUCTION:

This lesson plan includes activities and topics for discussion with your students prior to looking at the sculpture. It also includes information about the work of art and its meaning, suggestions for guiding your students through an analysis of the artwork, and an activity that is already part of the third-grade science curriculum. Before beginning this lesson with your students, please be sure to read the lesson plan in its entirety.

SUPPLIES: overhead projector; 8 _ x 11" paper; pencils; books; paper clips

DISCUSSION: WHAT IS IT?
Ask your students to look carefully at the image of Kitty Hawk. Do not tell them anything about the artwork. Ask them to write a paragraph identifying this object. Share all of the paragraphs and then vote on which paragraph most students think is best.
Please remember that all answers to these questions should be accepted, as students are individually responding to and interpreting what they see.

A LITTLE ART-EARNED KNOWLEDGE:
Now tell your students that what they are looking at is a sculpture, a three-dimensional work of art. That means that the sculpture has height, width, and depth. An example of a two-dimensional work of art is a painting, which has height and width but little or no depth. Ask them to brainstorm about other three-dimensional and two-dimensional objects in the world.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
Did any of the students’ paragraphs identify the image as a sculpture or a work of art? Before revealing to your students the title of the sculpture, share the following paragraphs about the invention of the first power-driven airplane. You may want to assign the bold words as vocabulary to be studied:

The Wright brothers invented the first manned, power-driven airplane. History often refers to Wilbur Wright and Orville Wright as if they were a single person. In fact, they had two very different personalities. Orville was excitable and very active. Wilbur was slower and more patient. They worked together very well. Orville came up with lots of ideas. Wilbur took the time to figure out how to make them work. Together they created their own printing business and ran their own bicycle shop.

Over one hundred years ago in 1896, Wilbur and Orville began to think about flying. People had dreamed of flying since the beginning of history, but in 1896 no one had been able to do more than glide down a mountain or a hill. After studying all the failed flying machines of the past, Wilbur built a five-foot model plane in 1899, which he flew like a kite.

Then the brothers built a series of gliders. A paper airplane is a good example of a glider. In order for a glider to work, it needs to start well above the ground, such as on top of a mountain or cliff. It then floats down through the air. Wilbur and Orville began testing their gliders on the beaches of the Outer Banks of North Carolina, near a place called Kitty Hawk. They performed thousands of experiments and test flights. Finally they made an aircraft that could be controlled by a pilot, who, for the first time, could safely move it up, down, or to either side. The brothers decided to add an engine and a bicycle chain to see what would happen. Then they added two propellers.

The weather was very bad for the next three months, and the airplane could not be flown. Imagine how frustrating that was for Wilbur and Orville! Finally, on December 17, 1903, with a single flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, which lasted only twelve seconds, the Wright Brothers changed the world. Orville was the pilot. He flew 120 feet! The brothers worked hard to let everyone know what they had done. They started their own airplane company. Wilbur died in 1912 and never saw the full effect of his invention. But Orville, who died in 1948, saw airplanes used in battle, for travel, and for business. When he died, the age of the jet had just begun. Today airplanes can get us around the world much faster than any boat or motorcar. The idea of something as heavy as a big, metal airplane able to fly makes the first flight seem like a miracle.

Now look at the sculpture again.

Tell your students that:

• the title of the sculpture is Kitty Hawk.
• the sculpture is made of two pieces of steel, a very heavy man-made metal.
• the bottom, or supporting piece, weighs three tons.
• the top piece weighs two tons (For comparison, tell your students an adult elephant weighs about one ton.)
• the top piece is carefully balanced on the corner of the bottom piece, with its own corners resting against the wall!
• the artist, Richard Serra, designed this sculpture to be placed in a corner.
• Serra used no glue, nails or other attachments!
• where the sculpture rests on the wall, the Gallery had to place steel plates inside the wall so that the enormous weight of the sculpture would not cause any damage.

Learning the title and other details about a work of art can add to or even change your students’ responses. Have a discussion about whether the new information has changed their ideas about the sculpture. Ask these questions:

• Why do you think Richard Serra named this sculpture Kitty Hawk?
• Why do you think the artist chose steel as his material?
• Why do you think he chose to balance the pieces of his sculpture instead of attaching them together?
• How is this sculpture like an airplane? How is it not?
• Can you remember what you thought this object was when you wrote your paragraph? What do you think it is now?
• If your idea changed, what changed your mind? If it did not change, can you explain why?

STUDENT ACTIVITIES:

The Wright brothers and Richard Serra have something in common. They are both interested in the idea of balance – the Wright brothers wanted to balance a flying machine in the air; Richard Serra has built many large sculptures that depend only on balance and gravity to hold them together. The Wrights and Serra needed to have a very good understanding of what their materials could do. This is called knowing the properties of a material. Your students are learning about the properties of materials in their science curriculum.

Give your students one or more of the following assignments:

• With only one sheet of 8 1/2 x 11" paper, create a structure that will hold a book 8 1/2 inches off the table or ground.
• Create the tallest possible structure with 10 sheets of paper and 10 paper clips.
• Using one piece of paper and trying many designs, build the longest flying paper airplane you can. Afterwards, test the airplanes to discover whose works the best (try giving each one several test flights and use the average distance to compare to the other airplanes.)

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

The aircraft the Wright brothers flew that day near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina hangs in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Visit the museum at http://www.nasm.si.edu/nasm/NASMexh.html.

There is a website with a wealth of background material and reading suggestions for further study of the Wright brothers at http://www.wam.umd.edu/~stwright/WrBr/taleplane.html.

Further Information for Educators