HeARTS & Minds Arts-Integration
Magnet Program

Program Background

In 2010, Miami-Dade County Public Schools received a four-year grant from the U. S. Department of Education through Arts in Education program funding  to develop, document, evaluate, and disseminate an effective and replicable standards-based, arts-integration program that enhances instructional practice and improves student achievement. Entitled HeARTS & Minds, this project was implemented at Robert Russa Elementary School in order to strengthen the academic achievement of students by integrating a standards-based, arts education program across the curriculum.

About HeARTS & Minds

The HeARTS & Minds Arts-Integration magnet programis organized around a comprehensive effort to improve teaching and learning as well as support rigorous academic standards that will positively impact student achievement at R. R. Moton Elementary. The program contains five fundamental components: (1) standards-based, arts-integrated curricula that incorporate object-based learning strategies; (2) collaborative planning and teaching between classroom teachers, the four arts specialists (dance, music, theater, visual arts), and visiting artists; (3) literature as springboards for arts-integrated units of study; (4) learning expeditions to cultural institutions, performances, and literary venues; and (5) ongoing professional development for school staff in arts-integration with artists and experts in the field. Staff from the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center (SEEC) provide comprehensive and sustained professional development for teachers that focus on arts-integration, object-based learning, and project approach which provide teachers with a foundation and framework for developing interactive standards-based, arts-integrated lessons for students at the school.

HeARTS & Minds Program Snapshot

Imagine walking into a third grade classroom at R. R. Moton Elementary where students are continuing to explore Nature’s Umbrella, a standards-based, arts-integrated unit of study inspired by the book, The Umbrella, by Jan Brett. The Umbrella, an engaging story that offers a rich learning experience, takes place in a lush tropical setting inspired by the Monteverde Cloud Forest in Costa Rica. Giant paper leaves hang from the ceiling of the classroom creating an umbrella-like Amazon environment. Papier-mâché animals, colorful clay insects and frogs, and numerous graphs, reports, and facts about the rainforest are on display. A collection of objects—assorted leaves and feathers, a piece of snake skin, an egg, and photographs of rainforest inhabitants—are grouped together in the center of the room. Under the guidance of their art teacher, Ms. Hanks, and their classroom teacher, Ms. Smith, the students are working collaboratively to create a paper mural, inspired by the artist Henri Rousseau, for display in the hall just outside their classroom. They have identified the similarities and differences between the illustrations in the book to various Rousseau paintings and learned about the three main levels of the rainforest—canopy, understory, and forest floor. Grouped into three teams, one for each level, students work cooperatively, using a variety of two-dimensional media, to create large illustrations of different species of animals that inhabit that particular level as well as foliage found in the rainforest. Great care is taken to include texture by showing feathers or fur, for instance, and pattern through markings, such as spots or stripes. Colors are mixed to make a variety of tints, shades, and tones of green for the leaves. Students explain how each of their animals has adapted to its particular level in the rain forest. The canopy level group tells you that monkeys can use arms and legs and sometimes even tails to swing from branch to branch and that birds, such as parrots, have specialized feet with two curling front toes and two curling back toes to help them hang on to branches. Moving on, the understory group explains that snakes, such as boa constrictors, spend their days curled around branches or vines while students in the forest floor group describe howjaguars’ spots help them to be better hunters by making them hard to see among the speckled shadows of the rainforest floor. As they complete their drawings, perspective is demonstrate through overlapping techniques as foliage and native animals are added to the Amazon mural according to their level. Once finished, the students respond to a series of questions designed for them to assess their work.