Elementary Arts Lab: Building a Community of Scientists, Artists and Educators to Impact Local Elementary Education

Elementary Arts Lab is a group of artists, scientists and educators who are passionate about cultivating enthusiasm and curiosity for how we explore and interact with the world around us. We work with K-12 schools to develop and deliver curriculum that integrates movement, art and music with the physical sciences. We aim to educate and inspire children and ourselves while challenging the stereotypes of scientists and artists. Our approach uses the concept of integrated learning, or the process of making connections between multiple concepts and topics and using experience-based learning [1]. Integrated learning plays on the idea that when you experience something you are more likely to internalize the concepts you were aiming to learn [1]. Our primary aim is to create a long-term network between educators, scientists, and artists and through this network create arts-based science resources for elementary school teachers and their students.<br/><br/>We began our journey in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, working virtually with University Hill Elementary School in Boulder. We started with eight CU Boulder graduate students, a post-doc, and two elementary school educators, an art and music teacher, in our first phase. Together, we built science lessons for third graders that we communicated through art, dance, and music. Our initial endeavor demonstrated that students were learning and starting to internalize the science concepts we were communicating [2]. Our first expansion included building off the fourth-grade curriculum in the Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) and implementing our work at a larger scale by making lesson plans that were available to all BVSD school teachers [2]. We also worked with a class at Heather Wood Elementary School during this time and doubled our CU Boulder student involvement as well as started to incorporate undergraduate students in both science and arts. Our current phase implements continuing education for current Denver Public Schools (DPS) elementary school teachers. We work directly with DPS teachers throughout a full school year in multidisciplinary diverse teams to build integrated learning lesson plans based on class curriculum. By supporting this approach and maintaining a long-term relationship with these teachers we can indirectly impact all the students that they teach throughout their career. We have worked with more than 10 DPS teachers and have now brought in more than 50 CU Boulder graduate and undergraduate students in arts, science, and education working as a network to impact more than 350 elementary school students to date in Colorado.<br/><br/>Beyond our direct impact, we also aim to combat the image of a scientist or engineer for these students. We aim to bring together a diverse community and show students on classroom visits that they, too, can become scientists.<br/><br/>Reference:<br/>[1] Leslie U. Bradbury (2014) Linking Science and Language Arts: A Review of the Literature Which Compares Integrated Versus Non-integrated Approaches, Journal of Science Teacher Education, 25:4, 465-488, DOI: 10.1007/s10972-013-9368-6<br/>[2] Elementary Arts Lab Website, https://www.colorado.edu/project/elementaryartslab/