From The Field - Port Jervis High School Students Doodle 4 Google

This year Google again offered its Doodle 4 Google competition for K-12 students throughout the country.  The winner of this competition will have their doodle shown on the Google Homepage, receive a $30,000 college scholarship and $50,000 in technology for their school.  This is an awesome opportunity for students to have an authentic audience for their artwork. Granted, it is artwork that revolves around a for profit business, but much of the art in today's society is done in the name of commerce through advertising.

Google doodles began in 1998 when Larry and Sergey, Google’s founders, placed a stick figure drawing behind the second ‘o’ in the word Google as a message to users that they were “out of the office” attending a music and art festival. From there the idea of decorating Google's logo to mark cultural moments was born.  Since then thousands of Doodles have graced Google's homepage for holidays, significant historical events and famous people's birthdays.  On June 9th some talented student will have their Doodle displayed to the world on Google.

This year Ashley Kaufman, an art teacher at Port Jervis High School, had her students create a Google Doodle and were given the opportunity to submit it to Google as part of this competition.  The theme this year was If I Could Invent One Thing to Make the World a Better Place...  and Ms. Kaufman gave her students two weeks to come up with a Doodle to submit.  Most of that time was spent preparing through brainstorming and researching their ideas.  Students had a smaller public audience initially with other art teachers coming in to the classroom to critique the students' ideas and execution as well as provide feedback.  Ashley commented that "It really is a fantastic exercise in creative problem solving, a very valuable part of the arts."

Six brave students submitted their work to the Doodle 4 Google contest.  Ashley shared that "Most of the students were quite self-conscious about putting themselves “out there.”  A few of the students completed the assignment but didn’t submit their entries to google, so I compliment those that had the courage to do so." Here are the designs of the 6 students and their description of what they would create to make the world a better place.

Brittany – Miracle Machine

If I could invent something to make the world better it would be a machine that cures all diseases, disorders and sickness. It would all be accomplished by one machine.

Maria – Grid at First Sight

What if people who were blind were given something to let them see? The sensor on their shoes broadcast a grid around them, outlining objects in their path. It would be similar to sonar.

Marissa – Wordly Conversation

If a translator could translate from any language to any language, people would make new friends and learn new languages; making the world a better, more understanding place.

Molly – Peaceful Radiation Device

I would invent a radiation device that will emit a compound that will end war and create peace.

Sarah – To Here, There, and Back Again

I love to travel, and so much of space is unexplored. My invention is a plane-like-rocket in which you can see the elephants in Africa, explore through space, and then come back and visit the Eiffel Tower all in one day.  

Zoe – Memory Helmut

I would invent a helmet that sees into peoples memories and deciphers whether they are lying or not. This helps decide if the person accused is really the culprit.