In This Issue
Great Resources
Harley-Davidson Museum
Black History Month Celebrations
Climate Change Art Challenge
"What is climate change?" The U.S. Enviromental Protection Agency (EPA) is giving Midwest middle school students the chance to answer that question through the arts!
 Click here to learn more.

Inspired Classroom
The arts can help in academics as well as self-expression.
That's why parents and teachers can check out "Inspired Classroom" to learn how inspiring children with the arts means success everywhere!
Social Media
handprints

twitter
March, 2010
logo
Hello,

February was an exciting month here at Arts @ Large and we would like to share some of those moments with you!

Educators and Artists Rev Engines at the Harley-Davidson Museum

On February 25th, Nearly 130 teachers and local artist educators explored the history of motorcycles at the Harley-Davidson Museum. In partnership with the museum, Arts @ Large was able to offer a free, guided tour of the new building, which opened in July of 2008.  The museum is packed full with classic cycles and interactive exhibits. Each display gives a glimpse into the history of the company, founded here in Milwaukee. Those who attended were able to do things like use the interactive exhibits to design their own cycles and see some of the original cycles designed by William S. Harley and Arthur Davidson.

Teachers were encouraged to take what they learned at the museum back into the classroom.

"There's a lot of elements with academics that could be applied [from the museum]. There's art of course. There's graphic design, there's math, social studies because there is a lot of history in there, and science, definitely. So I believe it can actually work across all content areas, and teachers can kind of use [the information learned at the museum] as a culminating activity." says teacher mentor for Milwaukee Public Schools Kimberly Guy. handprints

Artists also enjoyed themselves and didn't waste time thinking about how they could use the tour to enhance their residencies in schools.

"I had fun. I ride and I haven't been here before, so I had a good time. I think what it offers is a way that kids can find in popular culture the principles that they are supposed to learn in school. It [also] gives me some more references, and I'm always looking for references, so when I talk to kids I can talk in their language." says Center for Applied Theater artist Mark Weinberg. 

            Free refreshments were also provided at Café Racer, one of the museum's two restaurants on the other side of Canal St. The free tour also included a copy of Harley and the Davidsons: Motorcycle Legends by Pete Barnes. In addition, every Arts @ Large school that schedules a  field trip for their students to the museum receives 30 copies of the book for their school's library. Any MPS teacher that attended the event and schedules a subsequent field trip for their students will also receive 30 copies for their school's library. To schedule a trip to the museum, visit their website at 

www.harley-davidson.com/museum.

95th Street Elementary Celebrates Diversity with African Music

 The sounds of drums could be heard throughout the halls of 95th St. Elementary school last February. Jahmes Tony Finlayson, African drummer and storyteller, came to share his musical experience with the school. The students packed the gymnasium to watch Finlayson perform using instruments not only from Africa but also the Caribbean and South American, areas that have a strong African influence. He used his instruments to tell ancient fairytales and stories, which are cornerstones of African culture.

Finlayson, who has traveled to Africa to perform with his group One Drum, says he loves working with schools and doing shows for children.

diving into diversity"The students' reactions were very enthusiastic, and it's powerful," said Finlayson, who is a multi-instrumentalist. "It makes me want to keep doing this work...sometimes it can be a struggle and a challenge being an artist, but I always get reinvigorated by the reaction of the kids, because you see how important and meaningful it is to them." 

95th street school, which is in its second year of the Arts @ Large program, used the performance as a way to combine their theme of "Diving into Diversity" with celebrating Black History Month. The school's principal wanted an African American musician, such as Finlayson to be the finale to a month full of projects dedicated to African American artistry.

"We have students of a number of different nationalities here but we think everyone's nationality is important. So what we wanted to do this year [for Black History Month], with Arts @ Large, is take an African American artist and then individual classrooms would create projects and pieces around that artist's work. And we wanted to bring in a drummer such as Mr. Finlayson to sort of cap off the month," said 95th St. Elementary Principal Reginald Lawrence.

The students at 95th St. came together through song and dance as Finlayson invited them to join him in front of the crowd. He gave some of the children instruments and showed others how to dance to the beats of many different drums.