FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 18, 2006

CNY Schools Receive $30,070 in Grants for Art Partnerships – art$TART Helps Children Learn Through the Arts

(Syracuse) – Fifteen schools in Onondaga, Cayuga, Madison, and Cortland County have received art$TART arts-in-education grants of up to $2500 each. Administered by Syracuse-based Partners for Arts Education (PAE), the grants help students meet New York State learning standards by having teachers partner with local artists and use the arts to strengthen classroom learning.

The New York State Council on the Arts provides funds for art$TART. This year additional funding for projects was made available by the Gifford Foundation, which is sponsoring partnerships between schools and cultural organizations as part of the Community, Culture, and Education initiative.

The arts-in-education projects will happen during the spring semester of 2007.  This year’s partnerships include:

Onondaga County:
Allen Road Elementary (North Syracuse) 4th graders with the Everson Museum for “New York's Native Flora & Fauna: Bringing the Outside In"

Dr. Martin Luther King School (SCSD) 4th graders with Syracuse Children’s Theatre for “Understanding Life on the Underground Railroad”

Franklin Magnet School (SCSD) 5th graders with musician Patti Heath for “The Science of Music”
Jowonio School (SCSD) pre-K with ceramicist and photographer MaryFaith Decker for "The Welcome Project"

Montessori School of Syracuse (private) 1st – 3rd graders with weaver Sarah Saulson for “The Art of Weaving in Native American Cultures”

Nottingham High School (SCSD) 10th graders with NYS Early Music Association for “Interactive Sessions in Baroque Culture”

Renaissance Academy-Carnegie High School (SCSD) with the Everson Museum for “Making Choices: Stereotype vs. Prototype”

Salem-Hyde Elementary (SCSD)  6th graders with photographer Stephanie Bursese for “I am a Landscape”

Solace Elementary (SCSD) 4th – 6th graders with Open Hand Theater for “Puppetry Playwriting Project”

Cayuga County:
Millard Fillmore Elementary (Moravia CSD) 3rd graders with theatre artist Holly Adams for “Chaos”

Cortland County:
Cincinnatus Central School K, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, and GED students with the Everson Museum for “Thinking Through Art"

Madison County:
Chittenango Middle School 7th graders with fabric artist Sharon Bottle Souva for “Sew, Why Not?”

Hamilton Central School 9th – 12th graders with Picker Art Gallery at Colgate University, theatre artist Holly Adams and filmmaker Thomas Hoebbel for “Public Health in History: Documentary Film”

Madison Elementary School 3rd and 6th graders with Open Hand Theater for "MASC - Madison's Adventures in Societal Costuming"  

Madison High School 11th – 12th graders with Stone Quarry Hill Art Park and fabric artist Susan Parker for "Fiber Art: From Field to Fabrication"

The art$TART programs place practicing artists and cultural organization professionals in the classroom for an extended period of time. Teachers and artists plan the curriculum and lessons together, and the artists meet with students several times over the semester.  Academic teachers are trained by PAE on how to best utilize the partnership and are provided models of how to integrate New York State Educational Standards and the arts.

Over the past six years, 105 projects in schools in nine CNY counties have received art$TART funding totaling over $172,000. 

Further information is available by contacting Sue Stonecash at Partners for Arts Education, (315) 234-9911, or on the PAE web site, www.arts4ed.org.

Project Profiles:
Allen Road Elementary - Students research plants and animals found in New York State with their classroom teachers. The artist helps the students create paintings of their animals/plants. She then incorporates their original artwork into a wall mural in our school's library.

Dr. Martin Luther King School - Through the incorporation of improvisation, characterization, music, quilt design, and dramatic play, students develop an original short play portraying what life was like for the people who journeyed to freedom on the Underground Railroad.

Franklin Magnet School - Students relate the principals of physical science to the production of sound and the workings of musical instruments, making discoveries in science that lead to creation of sound. Students become musicians making choices relating back to the science of sound production as they write and perform a musical piece.

Jowonio - "The Welcome Project" will use the Reggio approach (child-led, arts-based education) to explore the themes of welcome and inclusion. Interactions and interviews with students and debriefing and brainstorming with staff generate ideas for a redesign of the school's entryway. Students produce work in clay to be included in the entryway.

Montessori School - As part of the school-wide cultural focus on North and South America, students explore the historical and practical significance of textiles for indigenous American peoples, collaborating to produce a woven recording of their classes' participation in this project. Starting on small table looms and graduating to a floor loom, they incorporate traditional Navajo methods and patterns along with their own choices of color and pattern to weave a rug for permanent display.

Nottingham High School - Students appreciate what life and politics was like in the 17th and 18th centuries, and how the Baroque era is relevant to the present, through creating, performing, and participating in the arts of music, poetry and theatre. This project continues to build on a workshop for teachers on Baroque music, culture, and politics in April 2005.

Renaissance Academy - Students create self-portraits to define and re-evaluate their own individual images versus stereotyped images, and to inspire motivation for self-reflection and creative problem-solving in a pro-social manner. Through studying artistic decisions of photographic artists, interaction with community artists, and using professional equipment to create their own artworks, they develop expressive, verbal, social, and analytical skills.

Salem-Hyde Elementary - Born from a desire to open the creative minds of students, the project uses photography as a tool to facilitate individual artistic expression. Exposed to a multitude of non-traditional, more contemporary, conceptual art modes, students enter a rare space where personal opinions can be explored without a right answer.

Solace Elementary - Open Hand Theater conducts a three-month artist residency that encourages creative writing through the development of scripts for puppetry. This project is integrated into students' daily language curriculum, allowing children to connect their experiences and other learning to characters and dialogue in their writing, and to see their writing brought to life through a publication and performance.

Millard Fillmore Elementary - The project addresses Chaos Theory via arts-integrated learning to understand patterns in weather. Students create music reflecting the natural sounds caused by weather events, use the art of Jackson Pollack and various weather imaging to inspire a collaborative mural, and create theatre pieces based on their science and art explorations, using the power of art to represent, interpret, and internalize concepts of weather.

Cincinnatus Central School – Health and Social Studies classes integrate Visual Thinking Strategies, which develop speaking, listening, observation, and reasoning skills through guided discussion of visual arts. They visit the Everson Museum and create art works of their own based on their discussions. This project is part of a long-term initiative in VTS at Cincinnatus.

Chittenango Middle School - Through collaborative creation of a traditional fabric quilt, students learn about westward expansion of the United States, and how migration of people leaves a "cultural trail," disseminates ideas, and causes people to work together.

Hamilton Central School - Students work with teaching artists in theatre, film, and music to create a fifteen-minute documentary film comparing aspects of the AIDS epidemic to the bubonic plague of Galileo's time. Students research these epidemics and write the film script, integrating content learned in their Biology, World History, Health, English, and Theatre Classes into the final film.

Madison Elementary School - Students explore masks used by various societies around the world, and develop an understanding of how masks are used by different cultures, incorporate symbolism and personify cultural values, and are influenced by geography and natural resources. Students design and create their own masks reflecting an American or world culture.

Madison High School - Students enrolled in upper-elective science and art courses explore the relationship between plant/animal fiber physiology and the use of fiber as a medium for visual expression. The teaching artist helps students draw conclusions about fiber structure and function. Students create two fiber art installations: one of plant fiber on temporary display at Stone Quarry Hill Art Park and one of animal fiber on permanent display at Madison Central School.

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Partners for Arts Education inspires learning and leadership for arts in education in Central New York and throughout New York State. We provide funding and support to deepen and enrich educational experiences in and through the arts for students, teachers and artists.

Partners for Arts Education
Delavan Center Suite 221  501 W. Fayette St.  Syracuse, NY  13202
315.234.9911  info@arts4ed.org  www.arts4ed.org

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