School Programs

The University Art Museum (UAM) has provided a range of programs from kindergarten to 12th grade classes for the Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD) and surrounding school districts in Los Angeles and Orange Counties since the early 1980s. The programs are designed to integrate art activities into school curriculum and include exhibition tours, hands-on workshops, classroom presentations, community service learning, and teacher in-service training.

Teacher Resources

Pre-visit and post-visit materials are available for classrooms to prepare your students for a visit to specific UAM Exhibitions. The activities and the museum visit support interdisciplinary learning by connecting the visual arts, based on the Visual and Performing Arts Content Standards for California Public Schools, to other core curriculum area. Click here to go to the Teacher Resources page.

EnvisionArt

The arts make vivid the fact that words do not, in their literal form or number, exhaust what we can know. The limits of our language do not define the limits of our cognition. – Elliot Eisner

The EnvisionArt program, begun in 2004, trains participating teachers to present critical thinking skills in the classroom through the observation and analysis of works of art. Overseen by University Art Museum staff and offered to selected schools in the LBUSD, EnvisionArt provides slide images from the UAM permanent collections and from the nationally known Visual Thinking Strategies program for classroom instruction. In viewing the imagery, students learn how to observe, interpret, and discuss works of art. With an emphasis on visual literacy, EnvisionArt engages students with diverse art imagery that encourages them to reflect upon a variety of art and cultivate their own point of view. In practice, students develop curiosity and a personal connection to the arts. Additionally, through their year-long exploration of many genres and styles of art, they develop broad critical thinking skills and a greater tolerance for unfamiliar ideas. The highlight of the program is a Museum visit for each participating class.

Eye to Eye / Ear to Ear

Collaborations become great only when everyone in them is free to do his or her absolute best—and is committed to seeing other members do their best as well. – Richard Loveless

Since its inception in spring 2005, Eye to Eye / Ear to Ear has partnered the University Art Museum with the art department of California State University, Long Beach, and the Long Beach Unified School District to produce a groundbreaking art education program. Eye to Eye / Ear to Ear (ETE / ETE) links career training with community outreach and service learning through collaborations between university, high school, middle, and elementary schools. High school students work directly with University art education students to develop meaningful art lessons for middle and elementary school classrooms. Each semester’s program is developed around a current UAM exhibition and culminates in a high school student-docent-led tour of the Museum for each participating class.

Funding for this successful program has been provided by the Arts Council for Long Beach, the Dwight Stuart Youth Foundation, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

For more information on these and other education programs please contact the UAM Curator of Education.