Forms & Resources

Welcome to the Forms and Resources page. You will find all necessary documents for participation here plus resources for deepening and enriching your experience.

Call for Entries
Hexagon Template
Regional Entry Template
Release Form
People’s Project/Community Event Template
Interdependence Themes Handout
Brainstorming Sheet
2023 Project Intro and Special Themes
2022 Project Intro and Special Themes
Kindness Participation Certificate
Video Tutorial for Teachers to Upload Student Artwork to Artsonia
Watch the PAEA April 2022 WebinART: Putting the Hexagon Project into Practice

Announcing the 2023 Theme: Environmental Justice

We will continue throughout September to add more links to this section and revise our website materials for your participation. Feel free to subscribe to our 2023 Resources e-mail list.

2023 Environmental Justice Theme Resources

Three organizations worked together on the environmental project “WeReclaim! Lower South Valley” that taught students excellent lessons about the ecosystem that led to them creating beautiful hexagons that will be displayed in September 2023. Thanks to the hard work and ingenuity of Earth Conservancy’s Communications Director Elizabeth Hughes; Carol Nicholas, Director of the SHINE Program based at Wilkes University and Executive Director of the Hexagon Project Beth Burkhauser, we can share this outstanding environmental lesson plan.
The 2022 Berkshire County Hexagon Project First Peoples Learning Guide by Stephanie Graham, Art Educator and Educational Leader includes the following helpful documents:
Resources from the United Nations Youth Programs:
- The United Nations is seeking Youth Leaders for Sustainable Development Goals. Learn more by clicking here to read all of the publications from the UN Youth Envoy.
- Read about how young people view Climate Change: “Youth Demands for Climate Change Education.”
- Learn how the Sustainable Development Goals are being put into Action. Understand. Choose your theme. Get started! Click here to read more.
- We know the problems – let’s find solutions! Read how solutions are affecting quality of life. What’s in your backyard?
Greater Good Science Center: Is Pursuing Happiness Bad for the Environment?
Greater Good Science Center: Five Ways to Develop “Ecoliteracy.”
Greater Good Science Center: The Role of Empathy to Save the Environment.
Art 21 Resources: The World is Yours video playlist here is an incredible source of contemporary art exploration for students, teachers and artists. “Art doesn’t stop where the real world starts,” affirms Olafur Eliasson. Artists in many ways embrace a role as purveyors of knowledge, creating works that challenge viewers to recognize, investigate, and appreciate their surroundings. While individuals enjoy the convenience of modernity, how often do they take into account the grey energy behind its production? Rackstraw Downes paints landscapes marked by human-made structures such as cell phone towers or electric wires—details that otherwise go unnoticed, consciously or not—and considers his job as an artist to “provoke this hypocrisy” of enjoying technological advancements without accepting their environmental ramifications. In this playlist, artists engage with environmental concerns to uncover opportunities to see the world through a new lens. From tracking natural phenomena to evaluating the impact of personal consumption, these artists position their work as jumping off points to reflect on our entanglement in these networks and society at large.

Welcome to Crash Course Climate and Energy! Over 12 episodes, they’ll take a look at the ways climate change is affecting our planet, untangle the evolving energy landscape, and learn to think critically about how we, as individuals and as a society, can affect the outcomes. Episode 1 premieres on 12/7/2022 Sources here.
Five Gyres Institute is a leader in the global movement against plastic pollution with more than 10 years of expertise in scientific research and engagement on plastic pollution issues. Learn more here.
Food Justice – growing a healthier community through art.

Resources that Are Valuable with Any Theme, to Encourage Creativity, Happiness

Greater Good Science Center: Shielding Kids from Boredom
Greater Good Science Center: Where Can We Find Sustainable Happiness?

Kindness Theme Resources

We tend to think of hearts and love in February around Valentine’s Day, but kindness and love are necessary every day! Check out these activities to do in your classroom around the theme of gratitude and kindness. They will serve you well if you are working on this year’s Hexagon Project with the theme of Kindness.
Here is what Beth had to say about the theme of Kindness at the 2021 Recognition Event.
Based at the University of California in Berkeley, the Greater Good Science Center studies the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of well-being and teaches skills that foster a thriving, resilient, and compassionate society.
The Pennsylvania Humanities Council (PHC) partnered with Philadelphia poet laureate Trapeta B. Mayson on a mission to help spread kindness. Through the PA Kindness Poem Project, residents were invited to share messages on social media that promote healing, generosity, reconciliation and peace. Here is an amazing crowd-sourced poem that came out of the PHC’s project. Hopefully the words will inspire visuals in your mind that you will want to use to create your Kindness Hexagons this year. Or perhaps you and your students will be inspired to write your own poem or essay from which students can picture visuals for the Kindness Hexagons they will create.
The Kindness Cloud is working to spark a Global Kindness Movement.
Here you can download a Kindness Project Pack to use at your school.
As we work toward a kinder and more peaceful world, this site from Curriculum of Hope, which is a Standing Committee of Connecticut State Organization, DKG [Delta Kappa Gamma Society International], offers some great ideas. This organization’s newsletter offers some wonderful ideas related to kindness as well.
Your students can experiment with Gelli Plates when creating their Kindness Hexagons. The following links lead to resources that explain the transfer process for Gelatin Printing, each focusing on slightly different ways of doing it using different materials. Read hear about laser image transfer prints. Check out Gelli Arts plus paint pens. Learn tips and tricks about Gelli Print Image Transfer in this video. And lastly, check out this video showing Gelli Plate Picture Transfers.
If you would like your students to learn and discuss ways to be kind online and help stop cyberbullying, visit an educator and presenter at Lesson Alive who offers a program aimed at students in grades 6-12 entitled Practicing Kindness online.

Lesson Plans to Incorporate Kindness

If you are interested in participating in this year’s hexagon project, in which the theme is Kindness, we are providing lesson plans for grades from K through 12th for your use. Thanks to practicing teachers and retired teachers: Melissa Cruise, Nicole Delevan, Danielle Fitzmorris, Kris Fontes, Jackie Thomas, Melissa Gallagher and Lisa Temples, who generously submitted the lesson plans below.

Elementary School: This lesson plan full of valuable resources here includes many great videos to reference as well as national and state standards.

Middle School: See lesson plan here that focuses on Drawing crossed with Language Arts. This next lesson plan for middle school students uses new media to create a stop animation video about Kindness.