Their critical-thinking, collaboration, and creativity in this work is often astounding and uplifting. It should be captured and illustrated for the others to see and reflect upon. That is why we created the Educating for American Democracy K-12 Student Design Challenge Contest. We asked young artists across the country to create original artwork to represent their interpretation of one Design Challenge.
K-12 Student Design Challenge Awards
Some of the best ideas our students generate come from the creativity and innovation that is spurred when they are tasked with finding solutions to real problems or complex questions.
Explore the inspiring and thought-provoking artwork, organized by Design Challenge, below.
The design challenges and EAD framework are flexible and offer room for inquiry, a diversity of viewpoints, debate, tension, complexity, nuance, and disagreement. The artwork below is the students’ own interpretation of the design challenges, but they are not representative of the only way to interpret the design challenges. The artwork and thoughts are the student’s own and do not represent the views of EAD, EAD leadership, or EAD affiliates.
My Artworks main center character is a young girl sitting at her desk, she represents students and kids who feel like their voices aren't heard or that people can't hear them. Behind her is a huge community of people who hear her and want to do something. They represent everyone that wants the change she wants. The words around her are representative of what she is feeling and doubts she faces worried that her voice and opinions aren't part of society. It shows that people hear her, that her voice is heard, and she has others supporting her. This relates to design challenge 1 because it illustrates the struggles that students face with their opinions in society. I think it shows how your opinion does matter and that it's heard.
This piece is a depiction of a civic action in which citizens are engaged in a peaceful protest to draw attention to the racial injustice that persists in American society. After participating in a Black Lives Matter march last summer, I became increasingly interested in learning more about the movement and seeking out ways that I could promote equality in my community. While many young people feel as if their voices cannot be heard, it is important to understand that we are an important part of promoting social change. While voting is an essential part of democracy, it is not the only thing that can be done to change the system.
All citizens have the right to peacefully assemble and to petition their government regardless of their age. Youth action can take the form that is shown in this painting and should be encouraged so that young people can see that their voices do matter.
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The central theme of my painting is creating civically engaged kids and making school a democracy. This is to inform the school community to learn about the social issues of our time, and to learn about the government and the constitution. Teachers should understand that we can learn better when we think for ourselves, when we learn how to communicate with each other. When we learn how to draft bills, make speeches, voting, debates, etc it is a sign of democracy. In this endeavor, students want to think for themselves while teachers give us the structure and form, so that in the future we can change the world!
This design is for design challenge 2, and depicts three children and their teacher working with an interactive map within a cylinder-shaped room whose walls are made by the American flag. The map is a visual of America composed of puzzle pieces - all pieces are essential in order for the outline of America to remain authentic and recognizable. The pieces are covered in symbols of different cultures, communities, and customs, and the children are currently exploring a purple piece in which a woman talks about her life, surrounded with personal items.
I drew this because in order for students to have a fully formed view of American life, they need to hear a diverse range of stories from those who live here. America is not the country of one main race or community with a few ‘others’ living among them, it is at its core a concoction of culture.
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This represents the multiple stories of our country. How there are so many different people with different experiences, and everyone's story is unique. I drew the face in each of the gaps between the lines as a different person to show how diverse and unique everyone is from each other. Then I added the LGBTQ+ flags overtop to represent the different sexualities and gender identities as well. Assumptions about people are unfair to those people, everyone of the same group isn't the same. Everyone is their own person and has their own stories.
Any many people may only know their story, but we need to look at different points of view and see more than our single story.
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In my piece, I drew faces of different people on puzzle pieces. This represents how everyone is part of the same big picture even though they look like individual pieces, and how every one person contributes to the story of America no matter how insignificant it seems.
The pieces of the puzzle, or in this case America’s story, may not look like they fit together but they eventually combine into one image or story. Even though you come from different backgrounds and have your own story you can realize sometimes that you share similar experiences with others and we all are just people after all.
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I can learn about my culture and other people's culture by asking at school to the students. For example, I ask my friend Eliany of her culture. She is from Dominican Republic. People who live in countries or cities they share this story of their home.
In my abstract and mixed media piece, I wanted to focus on the feelings of frustration a person of color feels in the American education system, constantly being ignored and spoken over. While internally we know that we are complex individuals, hence the bright & bold colors in the face, with complex stories and experiences, we are always silenced and our struggles simplified.
America is further from the shiny land of opportunity many see it as, and while we will continue to strive for that vision everyday, we cannot do that by ignoring the other side of the story; the struggles of people of color and our voices being toned out. It can be hard to clear our heads of the idea of warped privilege, but our one way road to achieving that picture-perfect vision of democracy is through listening to people of color - the foundation of America.
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There are people from both the left and right side that want to compromise on somethings but there are some who lack the responsibilities, and fear what can happen so they both are stuck choosing whether or not they want to cross that bridge, because no one knows if it can be good or bad when in reality there’s more things that can be helped and improved if we do compromise rather than just leaving everything the way it is.
Thinking together and coming up with solutions as a whole is an important part in preserving our democracy. My artwork reflects the idea of thinking together as a whole, but still being divided. There is common thread that connects all of our ideas, and when we compromise we have a bubbling idea that could help us to create a healthier democracy than the one we have.
In this work, the hand writing ‘We The People’ represents who is writing our history. And it should be a mix of zealous patriots (represented by the American flag), the more cynical groups and everyone in between (represented with other colors). This ensures that we account for multiple perspectives of our nation's past.
There are ink stains on this version of our history but we should accept that these will remain permanent for all to see. Telling the truth about this country is not an act of treason. On the contrary, only when our country is credible can citizens learn to love it.
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The design challenge that I chose was the fourth challenge, which talks about how we need to learn about America’s history by admitting where we have failed and celebrating the moments that are worth praising. The artwork that I have created represents a student looking at a map of the U.S. but instead of seeing just what it looks like on the outside, the student sees the bad and good ‘words’ that define our past.
In the center of the map are a collage of words that show the real history of the country, whether they are good or bad moments or concepts. The plastic wrap on top of the small collage represents how sometimes it’s not easy to see the real truth of what has happened in this country and these parts of our history can be ‘glossed over’. The ‘bad’ words are not as bold as the ‘good’ words to represent that they are more likely to be hidden as we can easily look over the dark moments and claim that ‘nothing bad happened’. The student looking at this map is thinking of what to do to make sure everyone knows about our country’s history so we can reflect on it and prevent those ‘bad’ words from happening again.
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The artwork is illustrating a bridge breaking and a person hanging off a cliff. His friend comes to help him up. The bridge breaking is illustrating us starting to fall into cynicism and tip into adulation, and the friend helping him up is illustrating that together we can get ‘out of the chasm of cynicism and adulation’ and into civic honesty and reflective patriotism.
My piece, titled The Bigger Cage, shows a bird climbing out of an open cage with the shadows of bars falling across the scene. This piece represents black men and women being promised freedom only to be barred from their rights by Black Codes and Jim Crow laws. Yes, they are freed from slavery but only into a bigger cage, they can flap their wings a bit more but are trapped just the same.
The Bigger Cage fits into design challenge 5: Balancing Time and Theme. This piece represents a problem that still affects many Americans today. Teachers can use this to talk about how slavery and the laws that restricted African Americans after the emancipation of slavery still affect the lives of African Americans today. This can also help students ask important questions and think about how they can be a better person and help them notice and stop racism around them.
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American history needs to reflect world history. Teachers can help their students see that people from all over the world influence American history, including Indigenous peoples whose lands we stole, people forced into slavery, and those who have migrated to this land over centuries.
This is all part of America’s hard history and influences perspectives and decisions that are made today. My artwork is made out of fabric, representing my passion for sewing. I arranged it into four panels showing people originally distant and self-centered, holding on tight to their own pieces of the world, then eventually coming together for the good of everyone to have a more equitable world.
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The different colors, Textures, and shapes represent how diverse and intricate our history is. The butterflies all around are how we can ‘fly’ and explore our way through this history and embrace it.
