Teachers' Day Art and Nature

Please note: Our professional development courses are normally aimed at Dutch speakers, and therefore we do not have an English registration form. However, this Teachers day is fully in English, so if you are interested in attending, please send an email to pre.university@wur.nl, and we will arrange your registration.

During this day we will explore how we can use art-based learning more frequently and effectively in the context of education around nature, the environment and our living surroundings. What does it yield for our perception, appreciation, insight, awareness and creativity?

Teachers from secondary education (VO), vocational education (MBO), universities of applied sciences (HBO) and universities (WO) will share their experiences and knowledge. Together, we will immerse ourselves in creative practice and learn from and with each other by doing and experiencing.

Workshop round 1:

• Soundscaping: perceiving sound and creating a composition (Ella Vingerling, Music and biology teacher at Rembrandt College)
• Painting in nature (Annick Gaarthuis, Nature artist): Nature is an inexhaustible source of inspiration. While drawing, you practice conscious looking, thinking, and doing. The focus is not on the end result, but on the process of looking. This way, you learn to appreciate the beauty of nature more deeply.

Workshop round 2:

• Working with natural materials (Linda van der Zeeuw, Art teacher at MBO Noorderpoort)
• Experimenting with Land art (Ravi van de Port, PhD and teacher at WUR): In this workshop, we will search for our place as humans in nature. Through the creation of land art, we come into contact with our immediate surroundings. We understand that creating is inherent to human beings, so by playfully connecting with nature outdoors, we can feel closer to our own human nature and open ourselves up to other ways of learning and thinking

Creativity is not limited to human consciousness; according to theoretical physicist David Bohm, it is the foundational principle in the entire universe, of which humans, just like a tree or a painting, are a part as elements in nature. In this lecture, I will discuss how art-based learning establishes the connection between nature, humans, and art. We will start with the art object, to slowly but surely also involve nature and the all-encompassing interplay of forces in the universe. I will draw on an experiential reality and more than twenty years of study on this topic, published in 'Rothko in St Ives' (2026), in which the artworks of Rothko, nature in Cornwall, and thoughts on life and death become intertwined.

Our registration form is currently only available in Dutch. Would you like to participate? Simply send an email to pre.university@wur.nl and we will gladly arrange your registration!

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