In cooperation with the Nassau County Museum of Art, Arts in Education offers a unique program of museum/school collaboration. Through this program, students and teachers can enhance their skills, knowledge and capacity for creative self-expression through the visual arts. Working with professional museum staff in school and at the Museum, teachers and students connect the visual arts with other areas of the curriculum through multidisciplinary themes related to current Museum exhibits.

Although specially-tailored services are available, the standard ArtPartners program begins when the school selects 100 students and 5 teachers to participate. Classes visit the Museum three times during the course of the school year, each time viewing a different exhibition. During the school year, teachers select those exhibitions which are best-suited to their students' needs and their curriculum. Specially-tailored services are also available.

Prior to each student visit, the Museum education staff conducts a teacher workshop which introduces the classroom teachers to the particular exhibition they will see with their students. Teachers meet at the Museum to learn how its resources can best be integrated into the classroom curriculum. In addition, lesson plans are developed by each teacher with the assistance of the Museum Education staff. The plans are shared by other participants in the program and connections are made to the New York State Learning Standards for the Arts. The Museum staff also provides the teachers with materials such as classroom guides, catalogs, posters and slides to be used in the classroom either before or after each visit.

To ensure maximum impact for students and teachers, the Nassau County Museum of Art and Nassau BOCES recommend that the same teachers and the same students participate in this program throughout a given school year.

For more information, please contact BOCES' Arts in Education Programs or Ms. Jean Henning, Director of Education for the Nassau County Museum of Art, at 516-484-9338.