It is no secret that America is overweight. A record number of children are obese and are showing signs of adult diseases such as high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes. Fortunately, people are recognizing this and beginning to do something about it: (1) restaurants and markets are offering healthier options; (2) menus are starting to list…

In this article, the author describes an art project--a school-wide sticky-note show. The show was inspired by Giant Robot's annual Post-It Show in Los Angeles. The gallery invites hundreds of artists to doodle, draw, paint, and collage onto sticky notes. The individual sticky notes can be silly, ambitious, conceptual, or beautiful, but the…

The first edition of this bestseller was featured in "The New York Times" and "The Boston Globe" for its groundbreaking research on the positive effects of art education on student learning across the curriculum. Capitalizing on observations and conversations with educators who have used the Studio Thinking Framework in diverse…

This article describes how High School Visual Arts Teacher Jethro Gillespie built a portable art gallery for his students--essentially an 8-foot cube made from plywood and lightweight boards that can be assembled with bolts and taken apart in sections. The ceiling pieces of the gallery have track lights, the interior walls have been painted gray,…

Many painters use lines to express powerful emotions. Both Vincent van Gogh and Jean-Michel Basquiat had difficult lives filled with hardship, and died at a young age. They both used art to deal with their emotions. It seems like the stronger the feelings were in them, the faster the strokes were put down in their work. In this article,…

Students have completed their two-dimensional drawings, paintings, prints or collages, and there they are--in a neat stack on a shelf. They deserve to be shown to the students, fellow teachers, visiting parents and administrators. They need to be matted or mounted, and placed on exhibit in a corridor, hallway or special bulletin board. By matting…

Empowering Women is a traveling exhibition of folk art that focuses on ten cooperatives from four continents and ten countries. The exhibition is a window into the ways that cooperatives empower women to: (1) preserve and reinvigorate their country's traditional arts; (2) generate steady livelihoods for their families; (3) send their children to…

In this article, the author discusses how to publicize the art program while integrating art history, technology, art concepts, painting, drawing, and performance opportunities into one project. She suggests that hosting a living artist exhibition might be the answer. Each year, the author and the school librarian conduct a collaborative study of…

The author's art program includes students from kindergarten through eighth grade. In pondering the "nearly impossible," he wondered how the entire student population could work together on one art project that could be exhibited at the same time. He wanted each of his 700 students to create an original artwork that would display individual and…

Targeting students in grades K-8, Art in Action's program consists of 12 age-appropriate lessons per year led by parent and teacher volunteers. The curriculum is based on historically significant artists and their works of art. Through semi-structured discussions, students examine a variety of masterpieces, learning about the artist as well as…

The author was originally inspired by "The Exquisite Snake" exhibit she saw at a local museum. Two hundred contemporary artists contributed to this exhibit, which was an adaptation of the old parlor game called "The Exquisite Corpse" that Surrealist artists used to play in the late 1920s and '30s. The author just loved this idea and decided to…