Week 5: Art and History/Culture

Educators delved into the nexus of the Arts and History/Culture with the following exercise:

"You are an archeologist that just discovered a long lost artifact!  Create an art piece or artifact from your time period that has only just now been discovered.  You can use any of the materials, or visit our "playdough" station to make your own clay."

After selecting an historic culture and reading the supplemental information, participants formed their artifacts and wrote descriptions for them before placing them in our "Lost Museum." 

The exercise allowed educators to synthesize information about a prior civilization and share their learning with the group when we all visited  the museum we had curated.

We also spent some time formulating authentic arts integration lesson plans, which we will continue at the next session.

The resources we shared were rich!  We had an example presentation of the theater concept of a series of "tableaus," which form a human slideshow to tell a story.  This could be used to represent a chain of historical events, or any story, as demonstrated below:

Finding of the artifact

The questioning

The exchange

Websites:
Philadelphia Arts and Education Partnership  Brings arts-based learning to kids with limited access.
Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education  Full of resources and ideas from Chicago
A Map of civilizations in world history over time
A map of the slave trade 
Maps from antiquity  Views of the universe in human history. An online exhibition here, found via BrainPickings  
The map as art (see the section on 'Worldwide Runway', Street Blues and Bright Side of the Moon) 
General Art Lesson Plans

Draw Like an Egyptian Lesson plan about Egyptian culture through art.

History Through Artifacts  Teaching history through artifacts

History Through Visual Art

Videos:
Horrible histories - a cheeky song that sums up England's Kings and Queens  


Books:
We Are All Born Free - about the UN Declaration of Human Rights 
I See the Promised Land, about Martin Luther King, illustrated by Patua artists 

Ideas:
Write a theater piece with historical elements
Design forts based on geographical locations
Make costumes from specific time periods
Write an artifact story tracing one object through time
Create a role play and corresponding props
Make different books from paper, like flip books or accordion books


Field Trips in Mumbai:
Prince of Wales Museum
Gallery Map  South Bombay's Galleries