Category Archives: Frogs Are Green kids’ art contest

05/26/18

Frogs Are Green at Jersey City City Council

On Monday, May 21, 2018, Susan Newman addressed the Jersey City City Council about Frogs Are Green’s mission and the children’s artwork up in the Caucus room. A curated selection of the 2017 winners in our Annual kids’ art contest.

Below is a transcript and the video of that event.

“Good afternoon Council President Lavarro and Jersey City City Council members. I am deeply honored to be here today to talk for a few minutes about Frogs Are Green.

We are on an awareness mission to educate the public about the threats to frogs and amphibians. Frogs are threatened by habitat loss, climate change, pollution, and disease. Because they breathe and drink through their skin, they are extremely sensitive to an unhealthy environment. Chemicals, pesticides, ozone, and UV are dangerous, even deadly, to them.

According to the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List of Threatened Species, a third of the world’s amphibian species are threatened with extinction.

This spring marks our tenth year and our voice grows stronger each day. Through blogging, interviews, social media and a variety of annual events we have reached millions of people.

Every fall, Frogs Are Green holds a kids’ art contest for ages 3-17 and a photo contest, open to all ages. Hundreds of entries come in from over 30 countries and as close as Hoboken and Jersey City and this number increases every year. I’m proud to say that this is a yearly project in the JC public school system and the students have entered for the last 4 years.

Children are naturally curious about nature and can express themselves through art in a way they cannot always express verbally. To inspire them we change the theme each year. This past year we received close to a 1000 artworks and the selection on the walls in this caucus room were curated from the winners in 2017. The theme was Amphibians & Reptiles. The contests will open again in September and we will have a new theme and a new selection of judges. I’m very excited about this fall as we will partnering with another organization to raise funds to save the frogs and the rainforest. We do not charge any fees to enter.

In addition to our annual contests and spring exhibitions, we design and publish books for adults and children to learn from and enjoy. These are a few of the books we’ve published and we have more in development.

Our New Jersey nonprofit organization is called FROGS ARE GREEN because we believe that healthy frogs mean a healthy planet. By saving the frogs, we will also save our planet—and ourselves.”

Susan Newman, Founder and President
Frogs Are Green Inc.

04/8/18

Amphibians and Reptiles Art Exhibit at Jersey City City Hall

Frogs Are Green is proud to showcase artwork by children around the world in collaboration with The City of Jersey City and the JC Office of Cultural Affairs for the 4th consecutive year! Just in time for Earth Day on April 22.

The curated exhibition from the annual kids art contest is up in the City Hall caucus room, so it will be visible in the City Council videos for the month of April. The best days to see the artworks are Mondays and Fridays. Just call or stop by the City Council’s office on the 2nd floor of City Hall.

Below is a list of the young artists in the exhibit.

Antariksha Sethiya, 14 yrs old, India
Claire Lee, 10 yrs old, California, USA
Elcin Sefer, 13 yrs old, Turkey
Eylem Konuklar, 10 yrs old, Turkey
Fatemeh Tabrizi, 16 yrs old, Iran
Gegea Bianca, 15 yrs old, Romania
Giwoo Kim, 14 yrs old, California, USA
Ipek Liva Gurses, 5 yrs old, Turkey
John Rama, 17 yrs old, Jersey City, New Jersey, USA
K.C.J. Perera, 12 yrs old, Sri Lanka
Luniva Joshi, 12 yrs old, Jersey City, New Jersey, USA
Lynn Sun, 9 yrs old, USA
Margaret Kelly, 7 yrs old, Hoboken, New Jersey, USA
Mina Buyukgonenc, 9 yrs old, Turkey
Minh Khanh Truong, 6 yrs old, Vietnam
Ng Yin Hei, 7 yrs old, China
Paulus Ong, 5 yrs old, Indonesia
Rachel Paulus, 9 yrs old, Florida, USA
Richard Alicea, 17 yrs old, Jersey City, New Jersey, USA
Ritvik Patra, 9 yrs old, California, USA
Shrushti Chavan, 12 yrs old, Jersey City, New Jersey, USA
Tanvi Gadre, 13 yrs old, India
Viktoriya Kukarekina, 10 yrs old, Texas, USA
Yanbo Feng, 14 yrs old, Michigan, USA

Any questions about this show, just let us know.
info@frogsaregreen.com

 

Sponsored by:
Remco Press of New Jersey

 

 

 

 

 

Strawesome - creating glass straws to replace plastic one

03/8/18

Young Artists Study Frogs in Belgrade

Students from around the world participate each year in the Frogs Are Green kids art contest, but we don’t always know about the lessons. I’m so pleased to share this letter we received from an art teacher in Belgrade, Serbia.

Dear Susan,

The first group of students we worked with were 13 year olds. We divided the whole class into groups and each group had worked on one area; had an electronic presentation; and their own artistic work. I must add that your project was so inspiring, that my colleague who teaches biology and I followed your recommendation on classes with six groups of students and each group had its own presentation and art project related to different areas of life of frogs. All groups performed their works of art, posters, collages, 3-d reliefs, etc., and during this time, one group went out in front of the screen and commented on the photos from their presentation. Other professors and pupils were present, so we designed the final part of the lesson as some kind of dialogue; comments and questions from the audience, to which the students responded.

It turned out that this was a very successful class. The children have responded to a great extent. In the second half of the school year, we will try something different with another group of children. We plan to make a short interactive story, a kind of dramatic play where students will make and wear masks of different types of frogs from around the world. All of them will communicate with each other and thus describe their characteristics. This new idea with masks and drama dialogs is just getting ready, so I’ll send you photos and information when it is done.

Bye, all the best,

Valentina Mirkovic
(art teacher)
“Janko Veselinovic” School
Belgrade,Serbia

07/15/17

Book Launch Party for 101 Wallace Students

Thursday, June 21, the art teacher Ms. Lynn Fusco​ at the Wallace Elementary School in Hoboken, New Jersey organized a book launch party!

We had two amazing cupcake cakes with the book cover printed on the top, bouquet of flowers and the tables were decorated with frog art too!

Most of the children were there as we celebrated the publication of their black and white drawings in 101 Wallace School Frogs – A Frogs Are Green Coloring Book!

If you purchase the book on Amazon Smile and select the Wallace PTO as your charity, they get a percentage of the sales. Win-win!

Here are a few photos from our party!

06/18/17

Children’s Frog Drawings Published

Four hundred frogs!

It all began by having a meeting at the Wallace Elementary School with the art teacher and approval for the school to participate by the Principal and Superintendent. Ms. Lynn Fusco, art teacher extraordinaire, taught the students about frogs and children ages 6-12 created black and white frog drawings.

I teach part-time at the school, so every week when I came back to the school, Ms. Fusco would hand me more artworks, until all 400 had been turned in. I photographed the art and added them to our international galleries on the Flickr website Frog Art. (Just one of our many galleries)!

Finally, it was time for the judges to make their selections from the field of 1441 artworks from 35 countries. Many selected the Hoboken childrens’ artwork and they appear here and there in the many categories we have on our website. Ms. Fusco created posters by hand and put them up in a few places around the school to feature the winners.

Wallace School frog art winners

But, I knew that I had to do more! When a school as a whole surpasses your expectations and the Wallace School delivered 400 strong, you must reward them!

First, I selected 24 artworks and they were on display in Hoboken’s City Hall during Earth Day and also in Jersey City City Hall’s caucus room. I will add that the artworks are up indefinitely in JC, unless another group needs the space.

hoboken-city-hall-shows-frog-artworks

City-Hall-Jersey-City-frogs-are-green-display

Then, I carefully reviewed and selected 101 to publish in “101 Wallace School Frogs” A Frogs Are Green Coloring Book. I scanned the art, designed the book and published it in May, 2017.

101 Wallace School Frogs - A Frogs Are Green Coloring Book

In addition, we have collaborated with the Wallace PTO and if you buy the book on Amazon Smile and select the Wallace Parent Teacher Organization as your charity, they get a percentage.

Purchase copies on Amazon Smile here >> 101 Wallace School Frogs

And… we’re not done yet!

Next week, we’re having a book publishing party with the 101 students who are in the book!

What a great effort! I can’t wait to see what happens in September when we open the 8th annual kids art contest!

04/21/17

Award winning frog art on display in Jersey City and Hoboken City Halls

I’m thrilled to report that both Hoboken City Hall and Jersey City City Hall have award winning artwork hanging just in time for Earth Day (April 22) and Save The Frogs Day (April 29).

We curated a show of approximately 32 pieces for each of the two spaces and our exhibition, Green Dream 2017 is ready for viewing. We selected the artworks from the winners of our 2016 kids art contest.

Below is a gallery showing both exhibition spaces and a short video that I shot today in Jersey City City Hall.

To see the full winners gallery visit this link:
Winners of the Kids Art Contest 2016