Students are immersed in the architecture of their neighborhood.
Constructing a Community
Program Summary A visual art teacher and a social studies teacher use the distinctive architecture and history of their school’s neighborhood to help eighth-graders see their community in a new light.
The Integrated Instruction
Maria Bonilla, Visual Art Teacher I think it’s important for students to see themselves in terms of their community. So we connect the architecture of Jackson Heights - which is basically the art form of our neighborhood - to our social studies focus, the community of Jackson Heights. Once the students start doing their own research on the neighborhood, and working on the art project, they really start to feel that connection.
Gail Altan, Social Studies Teacher Jackson Heights is a landmark historic district, and I wanted the students to understand and appreciate what landmarks are about. I feel like the students’ history knowledge was really helped by the art-making they did in this project. When they started to see that the models they’d been building actually looked like the buildings we’d been studying, that really excited them.
