Curriculum
Song for the Birds
Art Museum of the Americas
Collaborators: Ayelet Aldouby, Dominique Paul
How do you choose action over despair in the face of the climate destruction? Song for the Birds pairs with Dominique Paul's Silent Fall Exhibition to build empathy and connection with endangered bird species.
The curriculum's interactive cards lead participants through an exploration of the art and points of connection with their own lives. Visitors are invited to engage and contribute to the content of the exhibit while reflecting on their responsibility towards the natural world.
Wander
Black Paint Curriculum Lab
Collaborators: Jacqueline Simmons, Raquel Vigil, Sarah Gerth van den Berg, Amearah Elsamadicy
What happens when you suspend a sense of educational purpose and let your attention wander? What can be discovered when the goal is simply to follow your whims?
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This curriculum highlights the learning and meaning-making that occurs with something as simple as awareness of materials, attention to senses, and exploration of place. We wander to return with greater attunement - a shift in our orientation to ourselves, to each other, and to the world.
Student Engagement Workbook
Edible Schoolyard Project
Collaborator: Raquel Vigil
Focusing on how to access student attention, interest, and curiosity sets instructors up with a strong base to build out their teaching practice.
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The workbook offers a collection of texts and activities to deepen understandings of student engagement. The activities foster self-reflection, textual analysis, practice recognizing student engagement, and a personalized plan to increase student engagement.
Understanding Organic
Edible Schoolyard Project
Collaborators: Raquel Vigil and Nick Lee
Understanding Organic: Connections to Action in the Garden Classroom is a garden and classroom-based curriculum for middle to high school students that explores the concepts and meanings of organic agriculture.
The curriculum consists of a short preparatory unit, a sequence of ten core lessons, and twelve optional extension inquiries that can also be taught as standalone lessons. The final project workbook introduces students to a social action project in which students apply their knowledge and experiences to enact justice-oriented change.
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Cooking With Curiosity
Edible Schoolyard Project
Collaborators: Raquel Vigil, Nick Lee
How do you maintain the discipline of hope in the face of climate destruction? Song for the Birds pairs with Dominique Paul's Silent Fall Exhibition to build empathy and connection with the fleeting lives of endangered bird species.
The curriculum utilizes interactive cards to lead participants through an exploration of the art and the meaning behind it. Visitors are invited to engage and contribute to the content of the exhibit while reflecting on their responsibility towards the natural world.
Scope and Sequence for Camp Achshav
SAJ
Collaborators: Naomi Barnett, Sam Goldberg, Steven Cohen
Camp Achshav was a virtual one-week camp hosted by SAJ for teens ages 13-18 to consider the question: What is my role in building a more just and caring world? Teens explored the topics of power/oppression, antisemitism, race, the Black Lives Matter Movement, immigration justice, bail/bond reform, and more; and participate in unique workshops to learn key organizing skills such as fundraising, communications, solidarity/allyship, and creative action.
Mapping Place
Teachers College of Columbia
Collaborators: Raquel Vigil, Maya Elliot, Shuang Chen
While the tendency is to treat places as neutral and without meaning, the reality is that “spaces…are not objective or static entities; rather they are being made through interactions people have with one another, rules that regulate space, and the construction of material forms” (Schmidt, 2017, p. 100).
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The aim of the curriculum is for students to both critically analyze mapping practices and engage in innovative uses of mapping. Political, affective, historical, personal and community-centered investigations are all used in this curriculum to illustrate the complex ways space is experienced and mapped.
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Questioning 'Normalcy'
Teachers College of Columbia
Questioning Normalcy is meant to foster participants’ abilities to speak about sexuality with nuance, self-awareness, and critical understanding. It consists of a number of questions that help to answer the larger question: How might our identities, positionalities, and environments influence our understandings and experiences of sexuality?
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The curriculum is designed for a semester-long health class that has a total of an hour of class time per week. The units address sexuality, gender, race, reproductive justice, safer sex, body image, and intimacy.
