Cubing Goats and Fingerpaints

Today's in-class assignment was to use the cubing method to explore a topic with the group. Once a topic was settled on each person was supposed to pick one of the six "ways of looking at a topic"; Describe it, Analyze it, Compare it, Apply it, Associate it and Argue it.

GOATS - DESCRIBE 

Goats have freaky square shaped pupils. They are smallish four legged hoofed mammals in similar to cows or sheep in that they have been domesticated by humans over our long history. They usually stand anywhere from 24-36” at the shoulders with hair that is usually shades of black, browns and whites. This hair can range from short to long. Goats often have some form of horns on their heads, not as developed as say a bull or a ram may have but some short stubby sort of horn. One popularly depicted feature of a goat are their beards. Another common idea of goats is that they can be mean spirited, ramming into you just for the fun of it. They come in all sorts of varieties; they can be simple pets like the pygmy goat, they can produce milk for cheeses and drinking, or they can be a meat animal for consumption. They are also often found in petting zoo’s at county fairs, pumpkin patches and zoo’s. I have no idea where they come from before domestication but if I were to guess I would say Africa would be their continent of origin.  

 FINGERPAINTS - APPLY 

Finger-paints are can be used in a great many applications with the most commonly recognized mental image being that of young children covered in it in preschool and early grades. Here it is used as a creative outlet for the children that can be entertaining for the children but a potential nightmare for the people watching over them. This simple medium can be used as a great non-direct teaching method for children to learn colors, how the primary colors mix to create the whole color spectrum and how not to get themselves covered in it by the end of the project. The last usually takes a little longer to sink in or is ignored completely. Other uses of finger-paints is in art-therapy. I don’t know anything about this other than the fact that it is done.  

This method of analyzing as topic can really help to both explore and focus a topic. I found that while trying to describe a goat I wanted to move into the other categories to expand on what I was writing. I feel that trying to stick more to the chosen approach would make the project, if done in whole, better rounded. Each way of looking at a topic can potentially be developed into much larger sections on the subject, particularly if you were to use the easily found transitions to expand on a particular facet.