Hollywood Academy of Arts & Science (HAAS) sixth-grade art student, Abril Patrizzi won third place in the Broward Education Foundation’s 23rd annual Innovative Teacher Idea Expo Student Art and Design Contest.
This year’s expo theme, “One in A Minion”, ranged from student-generated artwork which reflected teachers sharing innovative ideas through a STEM project or classroom supplies using two-dimensional mediums of art such as colored pencil, ink, watercolor, acrylic, photography, and digital design. All entries had to be original work designed and created by a student. However, it was important to note that no Minions © could be used.
As a Title I school of arts and science, HAAS develops an exciting curriculum to promote the Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math (STEAM) program schoolwide and throughout the community. Art teacher Hilary Fine achieves this through her Arts Integration Program which addresses all the STEAM components.
“We were very excited to find out that Abril Patrizzi won 3rd place in the Innovative Teacher Idea Expo Student Art and Design Contest,” exclaimed Fine. “It’s a delight to have the opportunity to help bring out Abril’s talent and love of the arts. She is a very insightful young artist who strives to provide a well-connected visual message to her works of art that support her design and excellence. As a 6th grader, Abril was blown away to have won along-side a 12th grader and a 9th grader.”
“When I was first analyzing the need for a STEM design for the book cover, I wanted to express this through the visual design of the planets. While I was creating the circular motion, I found that it allowed so much dimension within it. This served as my inspiration which pulled me into the piece,” explained Patrizzi when asked about her competition piece.
The talented student will be honored on February 8, 2020, at the “23rd Innovative Teacher IDEA EXPO” taking place at Nova Southeastern University.
“Art allows me a wonderful method of expression and allows me to dive deeper into a higher order of thinking along with multiple levels of advancement. It’s an exciting avenue to develop one’s rigor that other methods of study seem to lack. When I grow up, I’d like to take this level of advanced analytics into the world of the financial industry as it’s an exciting direction that I’d like to pursue. But with that said, I’ll always have art as a major part of my life. I’m so very excited that others enjoyed my STEM piece and that it has won 3rd place,” added Patrizzi.