OUIL601 - Project synthesis

The title of my essay was 'How can illustration be used to inspire an interest in wildlife conservation in young children' I chose this title, because I became increasingly interested in how illustration can be used to educate future generations on important topics, off the back of the big success of my practical project during level 5. For the practical side of the module I decided to create a story book, which followed a snail travelling around his back garden, giving out gifts to disadvantaged wildlife, while learning about their plight and what can be done to help them. From my research into existing educational illustrations for children, and children's literature, I decided that doing my book in a half book half comic style format was best for incorporating all of my research into the narrative. I discovered through my research that it is said that anthropomorphised animals can possibly hinder a chid's learning, because they begin to develop a skewed view of the real world, but I chose to to have partially anthropomorphised animals in my book because I think that the age my book is targeted at would be able to differentiate between reality and fiction, and would still have the benefits of using animals in narrative, by posing the tough subject of wildlife conservation in a lighter way that is easier for children to understand.