Windmills, Art and Weather

While searching for resources for our weather studies, I found several windmill-themed paintings, many by famous artists. This seemed like a great way to incorporate art and science.

Back in the early 1900s, primary teachers used a lot of classical art for picture studies, even in the wee grades. Early exposure to art history is akin to early exposure to classical poetry - valuable and important! What better way to spark interest and ideas than to see what great and creative people have done in the past -- to get an idea of what is possible!

Studying "windmill" art might inspire:

poetry

creative writing

architectural drawing

engineering

-- even farming or sailing! 

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The following two pictures would be wonderful for a weather-themed compare and contrast lesson:

Windmill at Zaandam by Claude Monet

And View of Amsterdam by Ivan Aivazovsky

Questions you might ask:

How are they the same?

How are they different?

What is the weather like in each picture?

What do you notice about the clouds?

What time of day?

What might be the reason for windmills near the shoreline?

If you could choose to be in one of these places, which would it be, and why? 

What kind of paint do you think was used to paint each picture?

For Further study: 

Study the artists: Read their biographies. Look at their other paintings. What do you notice?

Choose one painting: Write a poem to illustrate the scene.

Write a letter: Imagine you are a sailor on the ship, or a person in the rowboat. Write a letter to someone telling about your day.

Be an artist: Paint your own windmill picture!

Another Monet, though a bit more cheery!

And a poem by Dennis Lambert.

Windmill

Even the whisper of a wind
Will woo these wind-catchers
To creak and groan, round and round,
Moaning above tulips, red and yellow.

And when one great dipping arm catches me
I soar screaming into baby-blue sky,
With wide and wild eyes
Stirring color to a blur.

“Hang on, hang on, hang on, ”
My laughing heart sings,
“Like love it lifts you
And brings you round,

And like a poem,
Dancing you
High above familiar ground,
It never wants to put you down.

Poem found on Poemhunters

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This next piece is a little bit of Americana. The article tells the importance of this wind-powered technology, and the basics of how it works:

The Windmill

Early Texans thirsted to move west, yet the thorns, sand, and heat of the West Texas wasteland kept them at bay. Because there was too little water, traveling -- much less settling down -- was well-nigh impossible, and worse, a new encumbrance called barbed wire barred most farmers and ranchers from the few existing trickles of creek. Unbeknownst to them, the Ogallala and Edwards aquifers lay in cool promise a hundred feet underground, waiting for discovery.

Enter the windmill. By tapping West Texas' hidden resources, the wind-activated water pump opened up for small-scale farming and ranching a good half of Texas once thought uninhabitable. On the heels of civilization came diversification, as the windmill and its successor, the electric pump, allowed ranchers to increase the size of their herds and farmers to expand from dryland crops to irrigated ones like corn.

In age the windmill is a piker next to an aquifer, yet the windmill has existed for more than a thousand years. Today's classic sunflower shape appeared only in 1854, created by Daniel Halladay, a Connecticut mechanic. When Halladay discovered that there wasn't a market in the Northeast for his sturdy, self-regulating pump, he headed to Chicago, where the burgeoning railroad industry realized its value: The windmill could enable steam locomotives to cross the dauntingly dry Great Plains. Dozens of manufacturers jumped in on the act, producing oddities like an umbrella mill that furled its slats protectively when the wind became too fierce and decorator mills with elaborate gingerbread, fancy paint jobs, and wrought-iron froufrou. But only Aermotor, 101 years old, is well known today. In 1986 the company bowed to the inevitable and moved to Texas, its major market. Its San Angelo factory produces a thousand or so every year.

A windmill works this way: A breeze spins the slats of the wheel, which moves a shaft; the shaft in turn moves gears connected to a guide wheel; that moves a rod up and down, drawing water into an adjacent tank (so-called -- usually the tank is just an earthen pond). Look closely, and you can see the moving rod, the on-off lever, the ever-present bullet holes in the vane or tale, and possibly a tin cup hanging on a nail to serve a passing cowboy...

Texas Monthly Jan 1990
Page 112

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Here are two paper projects for children fascinated by windmills:

Just print out and follow the instructions shown. This looks like a fun windmill to make!

Primary Education, Vol. 19 - 1911

This windmill refers to another volume of Primary Occupation Work, which is not online, so you will have to envision the description of how to make the base, or be creative and design your own!

Title: A Year of Primary Occupation Work, Vol. 2
Author: Etta Merrick Graves
Publisher: Educational publishing company, 1911

Or, you just might want to make a pinwheel, to simulate how wind power can be harnessed -- like we did in our earlier post! They are great fun for the youngsters.