Lesson Overview
This lesson introduces natural indigo in a textiles context, a historical context and a science context. Students discuss natural indigo as it was first discovered, and then discuss how it is being used today. Students have the opportunity to create and use an indigo vat and dye their own textiles. Additional teaching resources include discussion questions, PowerPoint topics, and a reading with accompanying discussion questions.
(Lesson adapted from Deborah Gangnon)
Lesson Objectives: SWBAT and PLO’s
· Investigate ways to reduce the environmental impact of clothing and textile
· Investigate historical, political, and cultural influences on fashion
· Create textile items incorporating the elements and principles of design
· Students will be able to analyze different textile surface design and how different colours are produced
Preparation:
· Create a indigo stock solution as per directions of the Maiwa handprints Indigo and Woad Pamphlet (20 mins; can be prepared up to a week in advance)
· 19 Liters of water in a Large bucket kept at a temperature of 45-60 degrees Celsius (10 mins)
· Indigo Vat Instructions Booklet for each student
Supplies Needed:
· Natural Indigo Powder (2-4 tsp per vat)
· Thiourea dioxide or sodium hydrosulphite
· Lye (sodium or potassium hydroxide)
· Synthrapol soap and soda ash (for cotton)
· Orvus paste and vinegar (for wool and silk).
· Natural Fibre based fabric for all students (silk preferable)
Teacher Guide / Class Narrative / EquipmentNeeded
Introduce Indigo
0:00-0:015 / ~ Teacher has prepared both stock solution (which can be prepared in front of class on a previous date) and beginnings of indigo vat (all equipment and hot water inside vat)
~Teacher uses the stock solution as a visual to show the colour of indigo
~Teacher goes into narrative about natural indigo talking about a brief history of indigo, how indigo work from a chemical point of view, what an indigo plant looks like and where it grows, and how to harvest indigo into the powder we use today.
~Teacher goes into narrative about what types of textiles are dyed with indigo and where we see the colour indigo in our modern fashion industry. / ~Indigofera
~Why do we use indigo?
~How much indigo does it take to dye a pair of jeans? (3-12g)
~Where does indigo come from?
~Why do we use chemicals in a vat and what are the alternatives? / • a large bucket or plastic garbage can
• quart wide mouth mason jar
• quart pot (stainless steel, enamel, or pyrex),
• measuring spoons
• wooden rod or stick for stirring
• rubber gloves.
Preparing the Vat
0:15-0:20 / ~ Teacher shows and tells students how to prepare the stock solution and the beginning of the vat.
~Teacher shows students how to prepare vat for stock solution and how to keep vat warm.
~Teacher lowers stock solution into vat and lets the vat de-oxidize. / ~How log does it take for the indigo vat to reduce?
~Can we speed up the indigo dyeing process?
~Why do we need to keep the indigo vat warm and de-oxidized?
Check the Vat
0:20-0:30 / ~ Demonstration on how to check if the vat is reduced and ready to dye a textile / ~What are the three main steps we need to know to check if the vat is ready?
1. Is the vat the right temperature?
2. Does the vat look like a neon yellow/ green colour?
3. If you dribble the liquid along a white cup, does it turn blue?
Prepare the Textiles
0:30-0:37 / ~ Narrative about why we have to prepare fabric before dyeing it
~What kind of fabric preparations does the fashion industry use?
~What kind of fibers can be used in natural dyeing?
~Teacher demonstrates how to prepare textiles for indigo vat. / ~ Has the fabric been washed with Synthrapol in warm and cold water for a long period of time?
~Have you placed the fabric in a warm solution on a heated element to mordant the fabric?
~How long have you washed and mordented the fabric for?
First Dip
0:37-0:55 / ~Teacher slowly and carefully demonstrates how to dip fabric into an indigo vat to reduce amount of oxidization that enters the vat.
~Must repeat at least three times so all students can clearly understand what is going on. / ~Watch the clock: Has the fabric been totally immersed in the vat for at least 10 minutes?
~Has the fabric oxidized in an airy space (and that it has been hung up) for a minimum of 10 minutes?
Student Performance / ~ Students will now take their own pieces of fabric (prepared with a shibori resist if they choose)
~Students must dip their fabrics into the vat so the fabric is fully immersed. Fabric must stay immersed in the vat for at least 10 minutes
~TAKE CARE TO REDUCE BUBBLES IN THE VAT, DON’T LET THE OXYGEN IN!
~After the first dip, students must oxidize the fabric out of the vat, hanging up, for a minimum of 10 minutes.
~Students may dip the textiles as many times as time permits.
~Students must wring out excess indigo dye over extra bucket and fully clean up all drips.
~Textiles must dry for at least 24 hours before they are rinsed with a vinegar solution. / ~Students can create a shibori resist pattern from thread, rope, elastic, marbles, rock, or buttons if they wish to do so.
~Students may read the additional readings or teacher may facilitate discussion questions during the wait time of the indigo vat.
Assessment / ~Students are not assessed on product during this lesson, but rather how well they reacted to a new obstacle.
~This formative assessment will be shown with a self-assessment rubric that is filled out by each student at the end of the lesson.
~This self- assessment lesson will be reviewed by the teacher and will be given feedback at the end of the lesson.
~Student highlight different sentences in the self- assessment rubric to whichever best applies to them.
~Students will put samples in their textiles sample binders. / 1. Students fill out self assessment rubric
2. Teacher reviews rubric and gives feedback
3. Students put dried (after 24 hours) samples in textiles sample binder.
Cross-curricular links:
Although this lesson plan is catered toward Home Economics, the cross-curricular planning ingrained in it teaches students about Chemistry, Botany, History, Family Studies, and Textiles. For my inquiry question: What skills and intelligences do students develop in Home Economics that we can apply to cross-curricular learning?, cross-curricular learning is integral to the development of student intelligence. For this reason, I have ingrained all of my lesson plans with multiple subject areas and multiple areas of study. I believe that learning the same thing from multiple perspectives enhances student learning and helps the students learn the topic through multi-modality learning. This encourages critical thinking and growth mindsets within our students.
There is two different notable ways to execute cross-curricular learning in a classroom setting. The first is to teach a lesson in one class and ingrain different subject area knowledge within that one class. This requires a lot of knowledge and preparation for the teacher, but makes the lesson more diverse and interesting for the students. The second way to implement cross-curricular learning is to teach the same topic in multiple subject areas. This makes learning more valid for the student as they are learning the same topic from multiple perspectives. It also creates repetitive learning for the student, which has proven to help the student retain the information.
Additional Topics / Teacher Guide / Additional ResourcesPowerPoint Topics / ~ Teacher shows a powerpoint of the following:
· What is Indigo?
· Where does it come from?
· How long has it been used and in what cultures?
· The ancient method of extracting the blue dye-Vat dye process.
· The economic value of indigo and value of blue to the world.
· Explain the process of fermentation, the reduction and oxidation process that eventually reveals the blue color.
Discussion Questions / Question 1: There are records of dyes being used to color fabrics dating to before 2500 B.C. If you were assigned the task of making material more colorful, how would you find a good dye? Keep in mind the point in time (3,000 to 4,000 years ago!) and the resources you have available.
Question 2: What are some of your ideas as to how a dye and the process to obtain it may have been discovered? Was it an accident? Divine intervention? Is it a process of trial and error?
Questions 3:
• Which of these sources look like the end color they produce?
• From which sources is blue derived?
• They don’t appear blue. How do you think it was discovered that they were a source of blue dye? How did they make it work? Did they get the results they wanted right away? What might have been some desired results and what would affect them?
• What are some chemical factors that might affect the color obtained from a dye source? Many dyes are used with mordants that are acids or bases to obtain different color results.
Additional Reading:
Have the students read “Blue Goes for Down – A Liberian Folk Tale” as recorded by Ester Dendel. This is a Liberian legend about how the properties of indigo were discovered.
Blue Goes for Down
This was many rice plantings ago. It was so long ago that hunger had not yet come to squeeze the stomachs of the people. When they wanted to eat they could eat sky. You heard me. They could eat sky. In those days the sky lacked small to reach the ground. Down in the hollows and above the rivers it was hard to know where the earth left off and the sky began. Sometimes the branches of the trees snagged the clouds and held them fast until the sun stood high and they had to let go.
All anyone had to do to get a handful of sky was to reach up and take. But what one took must be small, small. Too much sky and a person became drunk. Now this was just after Gala left off living in the village with people and went to live in the sky, but only just a little above the earth. People had been humbugging and headaching him too plenty. That's why he went to live in the sky. He stayed close enough to the ground so he could keep an eye on the people and see how they behaved.
In those days the people grew much cotton and the weavers wove much cloth. All of it was white and they had a hunger for color, especially the blue of the sky, but they did not know how to make that blue go for down and come into the cloth and stay there.
In the village of Foya Kamara, which is over against the boundary of Sierra Leone, there lived a young woman named Asi. When Asi was born it was known that she was one of the water people. How did the people know this? They knew this because they heard the water spirits howling when she was born. They had lost one of their own to human people. They wanted her back. That is why Asi had to go to the waterside each new moon to make a sacrifice to the water spirits.
It is the new moon now, and Asi is going to the waterside. Her girl child is tied on her back with a square of pure white country cloth, the cloth made in narrow strips sewed together just the way Gala showed people long ago. Asi carries a little bag of rice on her head. She must cook the rice at the place where the river bends. There is an altar there to the water spirits, those spirits that want Asi back. She will eat some of the offering and give the rest to the spirits.
Asi makes a cushion of leaves that she pulls from a bush. The bush is indigo. She covers the leaves with the white cloth and makes her child comfortable there. The child is sleeping as Asi places her carefully on the cushioned cloth.
Next Asi makes a little fire to cook the rice. She sits on the bank of the river to rest. She looks into the deep pools of the river and sees the beautiful blue color of the sky reflected there. She hungers for that color, feels starved for blue. She thinks, "If I eat a piece of sky maybe that color will come into me. Perhaps my hair will turn blue as thunder."
Asi reaches up and breaks off the first bit of sky. As soon as she swallows it, she feels drowsy and floating. The feeling is so good, she breaks off another and larger piece. And another. And another.
When Asi wakes up, she smells the burnt smell of scorched rice. How the water spirits would vex with an offering that was burnt! She looks at the cushion where she had placed her child. The baby had wet herself and rolled off the pad of leaves. She had been unable to roll back and had smothered in the tall grass where she lay.
Asi wails her sorrow. She rakes ashes from the cooled fire and rubs them in her hair. She goes to pick up the body of her little one and sees a patch of bright blue in the white lappa where the baby had lain.
After a long time of weeping, Asi falls asleep. The water spirits come to her in a dream. They tell her that for blue to come down to earth and stay, these things are needed: salt, urine, and ashes to live with the leaves of the indigo. Now that the water spirits had Asi's child instead of Asi, they made an end of requiring sacrifice from Asi. She was ordered to teach the old women of her people how to make blue go for down and stay.
The indigo leaves must be placed in a clay pot with clean river water, with salt that is leached from wood ashes, and the urine of a young girl. As the dye women of Foya Kamara stir their dye pots and wait for them to ferment, they bless the memory of Asi, whose child was sacrificed in order for them to have their skill in bringing down blue and making it stay.