UC Davis ArtsBridge offers immersive, sequential classroom
projects in art, dance, drama, music and the digital arts.
Projects are tailored to individual classroom needs, with an
emphasis on culturally relevant pedagogy that promotes community
and student empowerment through the arts.
The School of Education offers several programs in arts
education. Some are focused on students in classrooms, some on
teachers, and some in afterschool settings. Engagement in the
arts can inspire a child to be creative, to extend himself beyond
his own experiences, and to find new ways to learn and
communicate. Arts education is one important way to bring the
arts alive for a child, and many believe it can be one
significant tool in closing the achievement gap. In this issue of
the Catalyst, we feature the School’s arts education programs and
outreach.
This project introduces 6th-8th grade students with activities
representing a diverse sampling of music genres; these range from
spirituals to rap. Students are expected to take a significant
level of responsibility for their own learning as they progress
through project materials.
Elements of dance are taught in order to develop students’
literacy and poetry analysis skills. The ArtsBridge Scholar
teaches several elements of dance (including level change, shape
and gesture, personal space vs. general space, and locomotor vs.
non-locomotor movement), and uses dance movements to aid students
in their understanding of the poetic qualities of words.
This project introduces second grade students to several
different types of studio art forms that are directly related to
their science curricula: sculpture/three dimensional shapes;
collage/seasonal changes; photography/light vs. dark; color
combinations/historical and cultural traditions; monochromatic
artwork/measuring with a rule; clay imprinting/fossil study.
