What are place-based arts?
Music, Art, and Media education should and do often play a central role in place based education. The songs, dances, visual representation, and presentations of a school's bioregion serve as the nourishment and voice of an educational community. Placed based arts can only thrive with eyes wide open to one's community and surroundings and need to be a collaborative venture between "specials" educators, classroom teachers, and administrators.
Examples of Place based Arts
Place based arts happen in so many places, but may not even be labeled as such.
At Symonds School in the Keene, NH school district, art teacher John Bass, music teacher Peter Siegel, PE teacher Michelle Tiani, and Principal Richard Cate collaborate to produce a cross curricular program from year to year called QUEST. This program does everything from produce pageants about the local Yellow Spotted salamander with over-life sized Bread and Puppet like puppets to build place based art installations with the entire school community of 400+. Read more about the quest program in this Edutopia piece.
At Symonds School in the Keene, NH school district, art teacher John Bass, music teacher Peter Siegel, PE teacher Michelle Tiani, and Principal Richard Cate collaborate to produce a cross curricular program from year to year called QUEST. This program does everything from produce pageants about the local Yellow Spotted salamander with over-life sized Bread and Puppet like puppets to build place based art installations with the entire school community of 400+. Read more about the quest program in this Edutopia piece.
Resources and Blogs
Symonds Elementary School music teacher, Peter Siegel, has created an blog about his work integrating music, art, and place-based education. Check it out here: https://musicsaveseducation.com/
