Figure 1, North American Beaver, John James Audubon, Yale Beinecke Library
Above is a lithographic image of beavers by the American artist John Audubon that can be viewed in the book Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University. Beavers are an unusual animal in many ways. Did you know beavers’ teeth are orange because they have iron in them? Humans in comparison have calcium which forms the enamel of our teeth. Beavers’ iron teeth have adapted to be acid resistant and strong withstand great forces.1 Last Spring I wrote a unit on blacksmiths and how human engineering using iron has impacted our artistic production. Beavers have been described as ecosystem engineers.2 We live in a complex and dynamic environment and can learn how charismatic species such as beavers interact with the environment we share.3 Beavers are keystone species and have tremendous significance to indigenous communities in Connecticut River Valley.4 Wetlands shaped by beavers attract organisms from insects to Moose within their range.5 Wetlands created by beavers can increase riparian zones that reduce flooding as well.6 Beavers have existed in North America for at least a million years.7 There is a primordial story of a Great Beaver within these indigenous communities that describes how this region was formed.8 Greatness generally symbolizes importance culturally.9 Native Americans hunted beavers but they were pushed to extinction as a result of fur trapping by Europeans during colonization of North America.10 During the mid-1600s so many beavers were killed that collapsed beaver ponds turned into extensive and extremely fertile farmland for colonists.11 Fur is a characteristic of beavers which has set them apart and has been highly valued for global trade.12 A keystone in an architectural arch is the central support on which all other elements rely.13 For example, one impact of beavers cutting trees is that more sunlight reaches plants which support the aquatic food web of rivers.14 The destruction of “our original architects,” has implication for the world we live in.15 This can be visualized with maps and model making using an engineer’s mindset and learn about geomorphology.16
Local American art history from the artist colony of Old Lyme and the complex landscape of our environment inspired by the Everlasting Project the Sound School are incorporated into the introduction of this unit. Beaver Brook, an oil painting made around 1925 by the American artist Wilson Henry Irvine is an example of artwork inspired by a landscape shaped by beavers in Connecticut. Irvine was an active member of the Old Lyme Artist’s Colony that was inspired by the landscape of the area surrounding the current site of the Florence Griswold Museum. Students will learn about the environment of wetlands and how that ecosystem benefits humans and supports beavers and other species.17 Wetlands slow water flow and help reduce soil erosion.18
This Curriculum Unit is a visual arts unit written for 6th grade students. In this Unit, students will learn about how beavers, a keystone species, alter the flow and ecology of Connecticut rivers. Within this unit 6th grade students will learn about what beavers are and their unique behavior relates to rivers.
Beaver dams contain helpful bacteria which help dissolve nitrogen pollution which enters the water system.19 Students will use the model to test their design of dams by mimicking the construction of dams by beavers and see how they reduce pollution also through trapping sediments.
In this three-week visual arts unit 6th grade students will create artworks inspired by the impact of beavers on Connecticut rivers. Students will make a class model of a river with beaver activity a case study. Then students will adapt their models with beaver dams and test them. Students will test using food dye with and without dams to visualize the pollution mitigation impacts of beaver dams. Students will use the skills of collaboration, design and problem solving to create interactive models of a Connecticut waterway with beaver activity that has coexisted with human recreational use. Connecticut has an extensive legacy of man-made dams from the Industrial Revolution. According to data from authors of the book Damming and Wetland Ecology, the number of dams has risen exponentially from 1950 to 2023.20 Human made dams provide benefits for industrial and recreational development while also posing potential risks to those downstream if they fail.21 Dams are created to change water flow so that a reservoir is formed.22 Students will learn about the importance of maintaining dams in the design process and the impacts of dam failures. Students will have a class model that will change through the course of the unit in an iterative process where they will learn about water flow and dam impacts on capturing sediment. The civil engineer and scientist Dr. Burchsted has studied how environmental restoration is possible with the removal of manmade dams which have altered the natural flow of rivers.23 On the other hand beaver dams can play an important role of wetland restoration.24 Scientists have used imaging technology to track where beaver dams are in Connecticut to see how they are altering the environment in Connecticut.25 On April 18, 2026 I attended an Open House for the Highland Pond Preserve Dam Removal hosted by the Middlesex Land Trust in Middletown, Connecticut. At the event I learned that Connecticut has more man-made dams than any other part of the country per square mile because of its industrial past. I heard the concerns of a resident who was upset at the event because the reservoir that the dam created no longer existed. I was pleased to find that a beaver lodge existed at the site and that a beaver had been seen that morning. Perhaps people originally chose that site for a dam centuries ago for recreational and industrial use because it originally had a beaver dam there that created a reservoir.
Figure 2, Highland Pond Preserve, Middletown, CT, Kasalina Maliamu Nabakooza, April 2026
