What Is Arts Integration?

Arts-integrated education weaves the arts—visual art, music, drama, dance and creative expression—into core academic subjects like math, science, literacy and social studies.

Rather than treating art as a separate “special,” students can use creative work to explore and demonstrate what they are learning.

The art is part of the learning

Arts integration is different from simply adding an art project to a lesson.

The Kennedy Center defines arts integration as an approach in which students “construct and demonstrate understanding through an art form.”

That distinction matters. The creative work isn't decoration or a reward after the lesson. It asks students to use the academic material itself.

A student might explore a historical period through theater, use visual patterns to understand a math concept, or create a model to communicate a scientific idea.

At BCSIS, both the academic content and the creative process are part of the learning.

A quick introduction to arts integration

This short external video offers a great overview of what arts integration is and what it can look like in a classroom.

This video was produced outside of BCSIS and is shared as a helpful introduction to arts-integrated learning.

Why use arts integration?

Arts integration gives students more ways to engage with an idea—and more ways to show what they understand.

The arts can ask students to observe closely, interpret, imagine, make choices, revise, collaborate and communicate. Harvard Project Zero's research into arts learning has identified many of these same habits of mind, including observing, envisioning, reflecting, expressing and persisting.

It can also create additional entry points for students who may not connect as readily with a more conventional approach.

The goal isn't art instead of academics. It's to give students another way into the academic material.

What this looks like at BCSIS

Arts integration takes many forms at BCSIS. The school's own educational model gives examples ranging from studying Kandinsky while exploring multiplication to using dramatic interpretation to develop reading fluency.

Here are a few examples from actual BCSIS units.

Heroes: history, literature and character

In the second-grade Heroes unit, students explore what makes someone a hero through literature, biography, history and social-emotional learning. Each student researches a notable person and then steps into character to give a speech based on what they learned.

The Renaissance through Shakespeare

During a Renaissance study, students work with Shakespeare through performance rather than simply memorizing a script. They learn the story and characters well enough to retell scenes in their own words and improvise the action.

The Climate Expo: science, design and communication

At the Climate Expo, students study energy and natural resources, then use research, design and model-building to explain what they have learned and communicate environmental ideas to an audience.

Arts integration is part of a bigger picture at BCSIS

Arts integration works alongside BCSIS's integrated curriculum, multiple-intelligences approach and other teaching practices.

Subjects are often connected rather than taught entirely in isolation. At the same time, BCSIS teachers continue to plan around BVSD's academic standards and district curriculum.

That's really the idea behind integrated studies: students are still learning the academic content, but they may encounter it through several subjects, perspectives and ways of thinking.

It is about asking students to know something well enough to interpret it,build it,perform it,design itorexplain it in another form

That is what makes the arts useful as a tool for learning.