Learn about the artwork that is created and kept close to the artist’s heart, and other artwork is made to be shared! Dig into some DIY book-making, participate in a secret community art project, and learn how artists and musicians build unity through Afro-Caribbean dance styles on a trip to Dogtown Dance Theatre — all on this episode of The Creative Corner.The Creative Corner is a weekly TV show for elementary through high school students and adults. Each episode explores new topics through the lens of the visual and performing arts, with fun at-home activities that align with Virginia's Standards of Learning, and special interviews with guests from around the globe. Developed for 4th grade through adults.

This unit is intended to address the VA Standards of Learning for World History II Standards 6 and 7.  Students are required to explore the similarities and differences between the various Asian land empires and African societies of the 1500s-1800s, with a particular focus on geographic, political, cultural, and economic interactions with each other and the rest of the world. Through the unit, students practice information literacy skills as they research and become experts in one Asian or African empire, work with a group to develop a virtual museum exhibit on it, and explore the virtual museum exhibits created by the other groups to learn about all of the empires and synthesize the unit content.  The unit, which is separated into 6 modules,  was designed for use in a virtual learning environment with both synchronous and asynchronous components.  It could easily be converted to a fully face-to-face unit, but it would be challenging to convert it to a fully asynchronous online unit because of the group work activities involved. 

Map of Africa coded by the number of underweight children per square kilometer. It is thus a measure of the absolute density of hungry individuals, a combination of hunger and population density.

Learn about the connections between the arts and the Earth. Make art at home using natural and recycled materials, travel the world to see some of the planet’s oldest paintings (in caves!), and check out an Earth-friendly music video featuring primary school students in Mamelodi Township, South Africa.

Artists throughout time have come to their work with stories to tell, concepts to explore, and puzzles to work out. By looking at works of art with a curious and investigative eye, students may connect with these artistic ideas while exercising creative and critical thinking skills. This resource pairs objects from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts collection with simple engagement activities to help students thoughtfully consider and unpack the big ideas each artwork presents.