City Nature Art Challenge 2020

The City Nature Art Challenge

Green Cambridge and Cambridge Local First, both nonprofit organizations, are sponsoring the 2020 Cambridge City Nature Art Challenge. This challenge merges the artistic and creative energies of public school students in Cambridge with the Boston Area City Nature Challenge, an annual citizen science project contributing to research-quality data on living organisms in and near cities all over the world.

How to Enter Your Work
With your entry, include your first and last name, your grade, and the Cambridge Public School that you attend (or "OD," for out-of-district placement). However, we will publish only the school, grade, first name, and last initial of student artists.

There are three ways to enter your work:
1. Send a scan or photograph of artwork (.jpg or .pdf), by email, to:
wildlife@greencambridge.org. Emails from CPS student accounts, alternatively, may send them to jcroston@cpsd.us.
or
2. Send a photograph of artwork via Facebook Messenger to:
@cambridgewildlife
or
3. Send original artwork: by U.S. Mail, to:
Cambridge Wildlife Arts, ℅ Green Cambridge, P.O. Box 380932, Cambridge, MA 02238

Deadline for Entries
All entries must be received by the end of the day on June 9, 2020 (extended from May 26).

Use of Artwork
All grades: we may post images in windows of Cambridge Local First businesses.
In addition, the first ten images received from Kindergarten and Grade 1–4 students will be shared publicly on Green Cambridge’s and Cambridge Wildlife Arts’ Facebook and Instagram pages. By sending us student artwork, you agree to our sharing the student’s artwork on these platforms/in these locations, and to attributing the artwork using the student’s first name, last initial, grade level, and school.

CPS Kindergarten and Grades 1–4

SHOW US YOUR LOCAL ANIMALS! Choose any one of the animal species identified in greater Boston during the 2020 Boston Area City Nature Challenge, that just ended:, at this web site:
bit.ly/greaterbostonanimals. Recreate that animal with your art. You can make any of these:

a drawing (use whatever you have! Example: Pencil, sidewalk chalk, crayon, pen, markers)
chalk art on a sidewalk
a painting
a sculpture (use whatever you have! Example: Legos, cardboard tubes, homemade playdough)
collage or arrangement of objects (dry beans, fabric, pasta, fallen flower petals, other found objects)

CPS Grades 5 & 6

Choose from one of these projects to enter in the challenge:

Recreate an animal or animals at bit.ly/greaterbostonanimals using any medium. Recommended size for 2D images other than sidewalk chalk art: 5” x 5” inches minimum, 9x12 inches maximum.

Create a comic strip about the Boston Area City Nature Challenge using any 13” wide x 4” high templates such as the one provided at bit.ly/CNC-2020-Challenge. Include any of the animals at bit.ly/greaterbostonanimals. You can use as many or as few panels as you need.

Below: Northern Flicker, Photo 68421671, © Claire O'Neill, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

CPS Grades 7 & 8

Choose from one of these projects to enter in the challenge:

Create a poster to advertise the 2021 Boston Area City Nature Challenge, using any of the plant or animal images at bit.ly/cncpostercontest. These are the photos taken in Cambridge during the 2018 Boston Area City Nature Challenge project on iNaturalist. Leave room for adding the 2021 dates, which have not yet been announced. Learn more about the city nature challenge here: https://citynaturechallenge.org/. You may either make original drawings or paintings from the photographs in the project OR use actual photographs in the project that are licensed with a Creative Commons license (and you must provide proper attribution. Email us at wildlife@greencambridge.org if you have questions about the use of actual photographs from the iNaturalist project). Any medium, including computer illustration, is allowable. Required poster size: 8.5 x 11 inches.

Create an engaging, accurate infographic that illustrates the results of the Boston Area City Nature Challenge 2020. Any medium, including computer illustration, is allowable. The infographic must illustrate data and also include images of animals and/or plants from the CNC. If you use photographs from the 2020 Boston Area CNC rather than drawing from them, they must be photographs with Creative Commons licenses and you must provide proper attribution. Required size: must fit legibly on a piece of paper 8.5 x 11 inches (portrait or landscape orientation) or be legible if sized down.

Prizes

Grades K–2: Three entries will be chosen. Prizes will be a drawing pad and a collection of drawing materials
Grades 3 & 4: Two entries will be chosen. One artist in each grade level will receive a $25 gift card to Berryline
Grades 5 & 6 Five entries will be chosen. Artists will receive a $50 Gift card to Cambridge Naturals, Bagelsaurus, or 1369 Coffee (our choice).
Grades 7 & 8 Five entries will be chosen. Artists will receive a $50 gift card to Coady Florist, El Jefe’s, or 1369 Coffee (our choice).

We are grateful to our City Nature Art Challenge partner Cambridge Local First (cambridgelocalfirst.org) for donation of prizes for winning entries in Grades 3–8.