I’ve been a public school volunteer for more than 15 years. And as an instructional designer, I work with faculty focusing on early education. Arts integration has always been easier for me to conceptualize in early education than in upper grades. Music, visual arts, dance, and theatre are essential tools parents and early education teachers use to promote social-emotional, cognitive, language, and motor development.

At the other end of the K-12 spectrum, at Northwood High School, I work primarily with the arts education faculty. So I’m more aware of the “flip side” of arts integration—how the arts provide support for, and reinforce, other disciplines. In arts classes, clubs, service organizations, field trips, competitions, project-based extracurricular activities—students in tech theatre, dance, photography club, arts honor society activities, residencies, all-state music ensembles, camps—learn and utilize concepts in physics, anatomy, foreign languages, history, chemistry, economics, and social studies on a regular basis. Additionally, the nature of arts coursework develops those 21^st Century Skills of great interest in the business community, such as incorporating technology, creativity, imagination, independent learning, teamwork and collaboration, critical thinking, observation, reflection, synthesizing data, and problem solving. As in the larger society, the line between arts and sciences in our school community is not as distinct as a course catalog may imply. This broad approach, supported by the administration and active parent/community support groups, seeks to reach the greatest number of students with options to explore myriad areas of study, professions, and careers.

For example, at this month’s NC All-State Choral Festival in Greensboro, our students will join more than 700 peers, college faculty, and musicians to create a concert in three days. Our art students are represented at the Scholastic Art Awards at Barton College. Next week, high school instrumentalists will have similar performance opportunities at All-District Band Ensemble Concerts. Performing material learned over the course of a semester with classmates is important. Preparing work independently and in small groups, auditioning, and collaborating with colleagues you’ve just met provides a different set of challenges and opportunities for growth. This is also true for our arts department’s annual collaborative, extra-curricular project, the Spring Musical. Open to all members of the school community, this year’s Seussical will incorporate activities and learning experiences for actors, musicians, technicians, artists, dancers, exceptional students, shop class students, marketing students, and more. Additionally, it will also introduce many of our county’s youngest students to live theatre.

Finally, here are just a few stories, events, and projects I’ve come across this month alone where the arts and sciences meet:

• The Rembrandt in America Exhibit at the NC Museum of Art—one fascinating aspect of this recent exhibit is the use of science in conservation and attribution efforts;
• Two features from Duke Magazine, available online:
•  Clara Yang, Harmonizing Medicine and Music—a music and biology double-major who plans to attend medical school, her vision for a new kind of pediatric clinic, and her work with Duke Chamber Players and KidzNotes in Durham, and
• Creative Involvement—a look at Duke’s new investment in the arts and ambitions to transform the campus culture;
• A presentation by the Dean of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago about the integration and importance of liberal arts studies (sciences, social sciences, and humanities) in the education and development of their arts students; and
• An NPR interview with Gary Marcus, professor of psychology and director of the NYC Center for Child Language, who studies evolution, language, and cognitive development. His new book is Guitar Zero: The New Musician and the Science of Learning.