Geography through Music Curriculum in United States History
The Center for Learning through the Arts and Technology at UC Irvine, along with a consortium of five ArtsBridge America Universities, has been awarded a $250,000 grant from the National Geographic Education Foundation to conduct a three-year project called Mapping the Beat II. The project brings various forms of cultural music into the classroom to help students learn about United States history, with a focus on geography. Mapping the Beat was originally initiated in 2002 at UC San Diego ArtsBridge to address the lack of standards-based geography content and culture-based arts instruction within local public schools. Factors to be addressed included a perceived lack of arts and geography competence amongst elementary educators, limited knowledge of arts and geography lesson planning resources and educational standards, and increased pressure to prepare students for standardized testing that does not include geography or the arts. The Mapping the Beat curriculum, built around the national geography standards, centers around concepts of environment, identity, and movement. Classrooms participating in the Mapping the Beat II project will explore geography and music in their community and communicate with other elementary schools across the country, in three U.S. geographic regions: Midwest, High Plains, and West Coast. An orientation meeting will be held on March 31, 2006, and projects are scheduled to begin in the fall.
Please re-visit this site for more details and resources as the project progresses!