Arts to Life (Grades 3-5)  8 week; 3 Hour after-school program

SoundWaters Arts to Life afterschool program is a hands-on, interactive science enrichment and environmental education program for children in grades 3-5. The program combines science with a number of art forms – photography, painting and poetry – to emphasize key literacy in science, reading and writing. During the program, twelve to twenty elementary students participate in three-hour, after school classes that take place outside in Cove Island Park and inside the aquarium and laboratory at the SoundWaters Coastal Center.

The outdoor component of each session will center on observation and interaction, with the students studying the different habitats and organisms that flourish amid the salt marshes, beaches, tidal flats and forests of the park. Indoor sessions will vary to include writing (journals) arts (drawing, painting and photography) and laboratory science (analyzing organisms using microscopes). The media will differ from week to week but the focus will remain the same: exciting, hands-on activities that engage students in observing and studying the natural world through the lenses of arts and science. Each session will also include a floating classroom sail on the schooner SoundWaters, where students can experience the thrill of trawling for fish, examining plankton, and learning about water flow though the ecosystem.

By the end of the workshop, students will have developed a broad science vocabulary that they can comfortably use in written and oral communications. Students learn to think more deeply about their natural environment and achieve a higher level of awareness.

SoundWaters Arts to Life program provides students with critical after-school supervision, exposure to supportive caring adults, functional social interaction, and multiple ways for low-functioning children to learn in a non-competitive setting. The program helps children succeed in the classroom by providing additional exposure to concepts and vocabulary in biology, geology and physical science. The program fosters a sense of connection and respect for the environment and the child’s community, demonstrating the many ways these two worlds are linked. SoundWaters has run afterschool programs for elementary students for over ten years and parents and teachers report that students’ grades and attitudes improve after participating in the Arts to Life programs. SoundWaters’ afterschool program can truly make a difference in the lives of students.

For more information please contact: Alisha Mullet (203)406-3312