In early April, Mat Bevel Company’s Paula Schaper and Lars Marshall met with Patagonia Public Schools art teacher Elizabeth McCowin and School Superintendent Rachell Hochheim to plan the new world-building educational pilot called The Universe Within. Classes with students in 6th through 8th grade art class began on April 16.

The program is inspired by Mat Bevel Company President Ned Schaper’s world of Beveldom–a fine-art mechanical land teeming with inspiring characters–and his Available Resource Technology process. Students participated in a four-part introduction to world-building where they played the part of a central character in a unique imaginary world of their own making.

The Universe Within taught students specific hands-on skills to help them tackle life’s challenges with greater creativity. Skills were developed through journaling, doodling, and mask making. Stories were created, told, and performed. Students learned how to create and share their own novel characters, scenarios and plots to learn grade-relevant English language arts, listening, writing and speaking skills, as well as science-based design, construction, observation and presentation skills.

Mat Bevel Company Vice President Paula Schaper says, “Traditionally education emphasizes the importance of achieving goals. Students strive to achieve perfect grades, win at contests and sports, and finish what they start. While good grades and high achievement are important, if we’re too focused on the goal, we lose the creative ability to see all the possible solutions. The Universe Within encourages students to let their minds open up to less obvious possibilities so that, in the long run, they have a larger universe of solutions for life’s toughest challenges, those challenges that require them to think out of the box in order to adapt and succeed.”

If you’d like to support The Universe Within educational program, please consider making a donation or purchasing a shirt.

Each of the four classes started with a 5-minute inspirational and instructional video. Students will be encouraged to open their minds to fantastical concepts from the world of Beveldom. Then, step-by-step instructions outlined specific classroom activities.

The first classroom script asks students:

Do you know where one of the best sources of creative problem solving comes from? Inside of you. There’s an entire universe within just waiting to be discovered. We’d like to introduce you to someone who found his universe and created his own world, just like you can. Meet artist and scientist Ned Schaper. He made a magical world called Beveldom from thousands of recycled items.

After the video, school teachers and Mat Bevel Company staff guided students as they created their own world. Class one was The Daily Doodle. By using the art of doodling, students developed the basic elements of their world, determining what their world looks like, what it’s made of, who lives there, what character they’ll be in their world and the rules of their world. The lesson focused on giving students a daily routine of activating and capturing their ideas in a “doodle” notebook through words and drawings. This activity will helped students develop the capacity to draw out and express creative ideas for themselves, serving as an outlet and brainstorming tool throughout their lives.

Class two was Corrugated Headgear. Students developed the features of the character they wanted to represent from their world. Using the ancient art of mask making, students created a unique sculptural helmet or headdress from recycled corrugated cardboard and wrapping paper to represent their character. The headgear helped students slip into character and transports them into their world. This lesson focused on teaching students spatial-mechanical aptitude skills as they created functional art from recycled materials.

Class three was Story Book. Students got ready to share their world and articulated their ideas to other students, teachers, family and the community. They brought together meaningful elements of the world they created through their doodles, words and headgear in a story board format. This lesson focused on teaching students how to refine, organize and present their original ideas so they could make important points and communicate what’s meaningful to them.

Class four is Pedestrian Carnival. Student will get into character, step into their world and take the show on the road. Wearing their sculptural headgear, costumes and accessories, students parade around campus, creating a pedestrian carnival so that teachers and the student body can see their creativity and original ideas in action. Students gain valuable feedback as they see people’s reactions to what they created.

To learn more about the importance of teaching your children creative thinking skills, read this article that provides good advice on how they can succeed: https://qz.com/1021749/a-leading-happiness-researcher-says-were-giving-our-kids-bad-advice-about-how-to-succeed-in-life/