$50,000 grant will fund student tours of M. C. Escher and Leonardo da Vinci exhibitions
The North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) has received a $50,000 grant from Duke Energy that will fund student tours of and studio classes related to the Museum’s fall exhibitions The Worlds of M. C. Escher: Nature, Science, and Imagination and Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Leicester and the Creative Mind.
The grant allows schools in select North Carolina counties to visit the Museum for a free guided tour of either exhibition, or a free tour-and-studio program. The tour-and-studio program is a two-hour program for 4th−12th grade students that includes a docent-led tour of The Worlds of M. C. Escherfollowed by an art workshop exploring themes and techniques that relate to the works in the exhibition. The grant also allows the Museum to open one hour earlier on select dates to accommodate the tour-and-studio programs.
Additionally, the grant will fund bus scholarships to transport student groups in select counties to and from the Museum for the exhibition guided tours and workshops.
The tours and tour-and-studio programs will have a focus on STEAM, which integrates the arts into traditional STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) studies.
“The Museum is dedicated to promoting arts-integrated learning, and the upcoming exhibitions of M. C. Escher’s mathematically inspired prints and Leonardo da Vinci’s scientific notebooks are the perfect opportunities to do so,” says Michelle Harrell, the NCMA’s associate director of education. “With this generous grant from Duke Energy, we can invite students from select schools across the state to explore the mathematical and scientific worlds of Escher and Leonardo while using the visual arts to inspire creative thinking and problem solving.”
“We at Duke Energy are proud to continue our long-standing relationship with the North Carolina Museum of Art,” said Mike Hughes, Duke Energy vice president of community relations. “We’re excited to provide students the unique opportunity to experience this hands-on, engaging learning opportunity that brings together art and science.”