ARTIFACTS ACROSS THE AGES
Artifacts Across the Ages is the title for an Arts Integration pilot program that Arkansas Arts Academy initiated with the Rogers Histroic Museum. Students from the sixth grade social studies produce arts integration projects that resemble a historic "artifact" after each unit of study.
Throughout the year the students visit the Rogers Historical Museum and learn about the museum profession and how exhibtions are created. The end of the year culminates with a student exhibition where the student, under the direction of the Museum staff, curate, label and display their "artifacts" at the museum.
CURRICULUM COLLABORATION
AAA Director of Arts Integration, Aaron Jones approached 6th grade Social Studies teacher Joel Taylor to develop arts integration projects at the end of each unit. The projects would incorporate learning outcomes from both the Social Studies and visual art standards to create educational "artifacts".
These artifacts would not only serve as documentation of the arts integration, they would also resemble historic artifacts from the various cultures and era that were covered. Jones and Taylor collaborated for four years to develop age appropriate projects with strong connections to both the Social Studies and visual arts standards. (student examples below)
To see detailed AI lesson examples created by Jones & Taylor vist Egyptian Slabs or Chinese Art & Culture
Cuniform tablets
Egyptian slabs
Chinese Landscape painting
Japanese Haiku
Visits to the Museum
During the 2022 spring semester Mr. Jones met with Museum staff of Rogers Historical Museum and pitched the idea of a collaborative pilot program between AAA and RHM. Representatives from each organization met and developed a program that allowed students to students created objects and visited the Museum to learn about
w year we are piloting an end of the year exhibition with our partnering institution the Rogers Historical Museum.The exhibition featuredstudent work in form of a created object, curated collections of works, written historic labels, and personalized tours. The exhibition is culmination of two semesters worth of work. At the end of each unit students create an “artifact” using the media, language, iconography, tools and techniques from a specific culture. The process of creating the “artifacts” make meaningful connections to the core content of the discipline. And after a year of learning and creating the artifacts will be on display at the Rogers Historical Museum as an exhibition!
Students visited the Museum's Permanent collection to learn about how to curate objects and write objects labels.
Museum educators used special exhibitions to show students how objects in the Museum's collections are connected to a theme.
Students visited the museum's vaults to see how artifacts are stored and cared for.
Museum Education Manager, Ashley Sayers developed activities using the Museum's education collection to learn how to curate, late and display objects.
The Exhibition: Artifacts Across the Ages
Students worked with Museum staff to plan the exhibition. Ashely Sayers, Education Manager at Rogers Historical Museum, organized a week of collections and exhibition training for the classes then organized students into teams to prepare the galleries, write labels, create scripts for the docents and install the artifacts. Students had three weeks to prepare gallery didactics, wall labels and scripts for the exhibition.
At the exhibition opening students welcomed guests with refreshments and led visitors through the exhibit providing contextual information about the curated artifacts which included: Babylonian cuneiform cones, Egyptian hieroglyphic slabs, Chinese woodblocks and Japanese Haiku Haigas. Artifacts Across the Ages took place on Thursday, May 25th from 5:30-7:30 pm, over 200 people visited the exhibition.
Students curated artifacts by culture and era, then created labels as content for visitos to the exhibition.
Artifacts were measured and carefully displayed with accompanying lables.
Students learned to use various types of display equipment to highlight their artifacts.
Each culture had its own display which varied in exhibtion design from one another.
The AAA sixth grade classes extend a huge THANK YOU to our partnering museum the Rogers Historical Museum and their amazing staff Ashely Sayers, Education Manager; Glen Christophersen, Education Assistant; Jennifer Kick, Collections Manager; Rachel Smith, Curator of Collections and Executive Director, Serena Barnett!