This resource aims to: engage teachers and students in acquiring authentic and culturally respectful information; build factual knowledge about art, history, religion, cultural traditions, the role of the artist and the use of materials and techniques; support teachers and students in developing skills in intercultural understanding; and develop Asia literacy, the understanding and valuing of the wealth of artistic and cultural traditions of Asia, and the links we share across countries and cultures.

This web interactive from the Brooklyn Museum lets students examines the extraordinary artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. He created paintings and drawings filled with imagery that describes his ideas about life and the world around him. This resource allows students to examine his works of art in depth and to learn about the images he used and create their own art online.

Students will apply fourth grade concepts of equivalent fractions, decimals, and symmetry to create artwork. Once all students have created their masterpieces, they will have a conversation to compare and contrast the various pieces.  Through teacher questioning, this conversation will lead to a deeper understanding of equivalent fractions and decimal fractions.  This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

Students will be able to write a one-paragraph description of a painting based on their own observations; speculate about what happened before and after a scene depicted in a painting; write narratives using past tense and future tense; and write idioms about characters depicted in a painting.

This is a collection of images from Medieval manuscripts depicting important stories from the Bible.

This drawing lesson from the Andy Warhol Museum teaches students how to use Andy Warhol’s early drawing technique that incorporates a very basic printing process. Critical thinking skills are used to judge commercial advertisements and students make decisions on what they will include, embellish and edit out of their own drawings to gain a desired effect. This fully developed lesson plan is available as a PDF and includes handouts, worksheets, rubric, and a slide show with images and student examples.

These porcelains from the collections of the Freer Gallery are part of a 1,500-year-old tradition of making porcelains in Jingdezhen, China. Porcelain production during the Kangxi period (1662–1722) expanded China’s export trade with Europe, sparked the Chinamania craze in the nineteenth century, and bolstered the East-West exchange that endures to this day.

The Smithsonian 3D Program is a small group of technologists working within the Smithsonian Institution's Digitization Program Office. We focus on developing solutions to further the Smithsonian's mission of “the increase and diffusion of knowledge” through the use of three-dimensional scanning technology, analysis tools, and our distribution platform.

This work is already transforming core functions of our museums. Researchers in the field can now come back not only with specimens, but also 3D data documenting entire sites. Curators and educators are using 3D data as the basis for telling stories and sending students on quests of discovery. Conservators are using 3D data to track the condition of a collection item over time using 3D deviation analysis tools, showing exactly what changes have occurred to an object.

This lesson uses contour line drawings by using kinetic energy (by moving around on the floor while they trace) and social energy (by interacting with the student they are drawing on the floor).

In this lesson, students will watch a 25-minute video, Aretha Franklin ABC News Close Up (1968), as a pre-lesson activity. In class, students examine a timeline of landmark events that occurred during the women's movement from 1961 to 1971. While watching multiple live performances of Aretha Franklin, including "Dr. Feelgood," "Do Right Woman," "Respect," "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," and "Chain of Fools," students will seek to identify Gospel influences and investigate whether issues related to women's rights are reflected in the songs as well. The extension activity includes an insightful personal narrative that provides an account of sexism that existed during the Civil Rights era.

In this lesson, students will learn about behind-the-scenes operations at Motown Records and a few of the company's most important contributors through a "cafe conversation."

In this lesson, students investigate a collection of musical performances, television interviews, and movie trailers, discussing how black artists of the 1970s, including James Brown, George Clinton, and Curtis Mayfield, addressed black audiences through the music and aesthetics of Funk, casting a light on all that the Civil Rights movement could not do for a racially divided America.

Students will look at Serra's 'Circuit, 1972' and Brancusi's 'Torso' and compare the two works. Students will consider how sculptors articulate a form in space and how the sculptor draws a volume. They will also consider the phrase 'articulation of process' as expressed in much of Serra's early work. Students will reflect on Serra's verb list and experiment by making three different works from three different materials in response to a verb. Students will also create a more advanced sculpture based on Serra's second verb list incorporating suggested action or movement within the work.

Students will look at Brancusi's 'The Kiss' and compare it to other sculptures they have seen. Students will also comment on some of Brancusi's aphorisms about art and the creative process. Students will create an artwork that responds to the artwork of Brancusi or Serra or Rodin. Students will also explore direct carving after the work of Brancusi.

Students will look at Richard Serra's 'The Consequence of Consequence'. They will then create a mock-up of a space in or near their school and create model sculptures for the space. Students will also write a dialogue between the artists Constantin Brancusi and Richard Serra depicting what the artists might say to each other with the conversation revealing insights into their work.

In this lesson, students will be able to use visual evidence to generate inferences; identify ways artists' choices (i.e., composition, scale, pose and facial expressions, and lighting) convey point of view; and compose a fictional field report from the perspective of a Hessian scout.

Students will be able to discuss a photograph and write a descriptive narrative using sensory details; identify the events leading up to the Emancipation Proclamation and speculate what life was like for newly freed slaves in 19th-century America; write journal entries from the perspective of a freed slave in the 19th century; and create a print using scratch foam.

Students will understand the structural importance of the arch shape in bridge design. Students will compare and contrast modern arch bridges to historical arch bridges. Students will design and sketch their own arch bridge design.

Students will understand what a cable-stayed bridge is and its structural importance. Students will identify the different key parts of a cable-stayed bridge. Students will study how the forces of compresion and tension are distributed on this type of bridge. Students will make comparisons between cable stayed bridges and other bridges that they are familiar with. Students will design and construct a scale sketch of their own cable-stayed bridge.

Students will understand how suspension bridges work. Students will identify the main parts of a suspension bridge. Students will know the signifigance of suspension bridges to modern construction. Students will design and draw their own suspension bridge. Students will learn what civil engineers put into consideration when designing a suspention bridge.

Students will learn the geometry and structural importance of a truss which allows it to be used to make bridges. Students will work in pairs to design, build, and test the strength of their own small wooden truss bridge. Students will know the importance of materials used in truss bridges.