This funding gives us the critical means to develop much-needed hands-on arts programs for our community’s children over the next couple of years, said Laurie Baefsky, USU ArtsBridge program director. USU ArtsBridge which was piloted in fall 2007 through the generous support of the Marie Eccles Caine Foundation placed nine USU student scholars in six schools last year for long-term arts residencies. Last year these scholars worked throughout an entire semester with students grades 2-12 creating murals, wall-sized mosaics, an outdoor classroom, books of art, photography and poetry, all the while tying their projects into math and science, language arts and history. IMLS funding will bolster existing USU ArtsBridge programming (which has continued Marie Eccles Caine Foundation support), as well as provide the means to launch The Spiraled Learning Project, an interdisciplinary pilot project using museum acquisitions as the vehicle to teach mathematical and geometric concepts.
When area schools who participated in our museum education tours came to us and said they needed help raising their math scores, we took a critical look at how we could creatively address this deficit through the museum’s own collection, Baefsky states. Schools need help teaching math in a way that children can understand and retain concepts, and classroom students need more hands-on arts in their lives, Baefsky continues. Putting these two challenges together, the museum designed their Spiraled Learning Project, drawing on the museum’s own nationally-recognized collection of contemporary Western American art. The 50’ x 28’ impressive geometric sculpture Passacaglia by Ann Preston located in the lobby of the new Utah State University Performance Hall will be a key teaching piece in the project. Its construction and design is based on the tetrahedron (a pyramid on a triangular base) and the proportions of the Golden Mean (a mathematical ratio sometimes called the “divine proportion” which exists throughout nature) – both going back to the days of Plato.
Classrooms involved in The Spiraled Learning Project will have trips to the museum, a new art-math curriculum for specific grade levels, on-line curriculum support, and the opportunity to extend this exploration through an USU ArtsBridge project within individual classrooms. Museum education curator Nadra Haffar explains that the “spiral” is created by overlaying the theoretical of classroom instruction with outside learning experiences. By looking at math through the artist’s eyes as well as examining art through the lens of mathematics, learning is enhanced and extended. In this way, one builds on the other by removing the artificial segmentation of traditional instruction where each subject is taught separately, and replacing this model with an integrated approach. The IMLS grant will allow for the development of these projects at no cost to participating schools.
As repositories of our nation’s treasures and our nation’s history, museums are positioned to play an integral role in the education of their communities, said Dr. Anne-Imelda M. Radice, Director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Museums for America grants support projects and ongoing activities that build museums’ capacities and help these institutions serve their diverse constituencies to the best of their abilities. Museums for America provides more than $17 million in grants to support the role of museums in American society to sustain cultural heritage, to support lifelong learning; and to be centers of community engagement. Museums for America grants strengthen a museum’s ability to serve the public more effectively by supporting high-priority activities that advance the institution’s mission and strategic goals. Victoria Rowe Berry, director of the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art sums it up by saying “our partnership with this program is an important step forward in our ability to creatively impact our community. We are very honored to receive this funding and excited about the potential to support rich interdisciplinary arts experiences.”
For information on USU ArtsBridge or to become involved in The Spiraled Learning Project, contact Baefsky at (435) 760-4889, or by email at laurie.baefsky@usu.edu.
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USU-ArtsBridge
Source: USU ArtsBridge for USU Public USU/pw 9/XX/08
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