Because of the BSCS commitment to science education and the use of research, I have had many opportunities to reference materials and use the skills and knowledge gained to help my district and region build and sustain science reform efforts.
Jane Larson passes away at 78
Publish Date:
Mon, 06/18/2012 Jane Larson served as founder and long-time director of the nationally-renowned BSCS Art Department. Click on small images above for examples of illustrations produced by the group.
Jane Larson, the creative and dynamic center of BSCS’s art department from 1958 until the early 1980s, died at her home in Rockford, Illinois, on 15 May 2012. In the days before computer-generated art, Jane coordinated the work of a talented group of professionals who generated by hand the multifaceted design, artistic, and production aspects of the three original BSCS textbooks and hundreds of other educational programs.
Jane came to BSCS from the Florida State Museum (now the Florida Museum of Natural History) at the University of Florida, Gainesville, along Dr. Walter Auffenberg, a distinguished herpetologist from the museum who became BSCS’s first associate director.
Born in Galesburg, Illinois, in 1934, Jane, like virtually all other members of the BSCS art department, was trained in biological illustration. The expertise represented in the group was diverse enough to produce high-quality artwork ranging from beautifully rendered flora and fauna to depictions of complex cellular and molecular processes (see the examples). In all cases, the artwork was intended not as mere decoration but as an essential complement to the learning embedded in the accompanying narrative. One of Jane’s signature, yet simple, contributions was the now-iconic BSCS logo of the grazing deer, which became elephants, water buffaloes, and other beasts as countries around the world adapted BSCS programs for their schools.
For those of us bereft of artistic ability it was a special pleasure to visit the art department and watch an idea for a given piece of art take shape before our eyes as Jane or one of her colleagues produced a preliminary sketch from a verbal description. Jane built such a talented and productive group that publishers and ministries of education from around the world sent artists to study at BSCS.
Jane and her fellow artists were a joy to work with, and they took the world from a different point of view: a sign on the dark-room door read, “If You Leave the Door Open, All of the Dark Will Leak Out.”
Memorial courtesy of
Manert Kennedy | BSCS Associate Director, 1968-1982
Joseph D. McInerney | BSCS Staff Associate, 1977-1979; BSCS Associate Director, 1979-1985; BSCS Executive Director, 1985-1999
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