Through a variety of classroom and museum experiences, high school students will be able to explain how ceramic forms can provide examples of both continuity and change between regions and how the trade of ceramic products between cultures can create a positive impact on both economic and diplomatic fronts. 

Through a variety of classroom and museum experiences, middle school students will apply their scientific inquiry skills to investigate different artistic mediums in order to discover how artists have applied various tools and technology in the transformation of raw materials into works of art. 

Through classroom and museum experiences, middle school students will be able to describe the ways in which East Asian painting and calligraphy in various formats have evolved as records of time and conveyors of cultural values. 

Creating a piece of art from smaller pieces of paper, fabric, or other objects is known as collage. American artist Romare Bearden, developed his unique approach to collage in the 1960s, as seen in his 1971 Stamping Ground, that captures the richness of contemporary African American life in a New York neighborhood.

Create your own collage, inspired by Romare Bearden’s Stamping Ground, using things you have around the house to show your neighborhood, or another favorite place. Think about who lives there, what kind of buildings do you see, or what sort of plants start popping up this time of the year. Before you glue the paper down, try out arranging and overlapping the pieces in different ways.

American artist Alexander Calder first trained as an engineer before studying art. He’s known for his playful, airy works made of simple shapes cut from sheet metal. Some of them include moving parts and he called those “mobiles.”

Stationary constructions he named “stabiles.” Let’s make a free-standing geometric sculpture inspired by Alexander Calder’s Young Woman and Her Suitors, a giant stabile on the DIA lawn.

Students will use the Houdon exhibit to analyze different ways Benjamin Franklin and George Washington were perceived in the face of many challenges and conflicts during the American Revolutionary period.

Through the use of Core Democratic Values (CDV) and the Houdon exhibition materials, students will explore the ways in which ideals promoted by the founding generation connect to the present.

This graphic organizer helps students use their observations of artful objects as clues in uncovering how religion and philosophy have shaped the development of societies.

Using the Spanish Language and Culture AP suggested themes of “Families and Communities,” “Personal and Public Identities,” “Contemporary Life” and “Global Challenges,” students will explore the objects from an ofrenda to understand and analyze how they represent, summarize, and encapsulate the lives, challenges, and preferences of beloved individuals and/or public causes.

Using this self-guided activity, visitors connect principles of mindfulness and art in the DIA collection.