Science and Art in Harmony!

I-STAMP! Art in Science Curriculum

     INDIGENOUS

                    -Science/Spirit

                                         -Technology/Tempo

                            -Agriculture/Art

                  -Math/Music

         -Percussion/Poetry

Welcome to the I-STAMP! Classroom. 

I-STAMP!  is an innovative multi-disciplinary, cross-generational curriculum and classroom design. The underlying intention of the curriculum is to develop, heal and strengthen people’s relationship with the land. It spans the generational divides that exist in our culture. It is geared to engage the whole person, developing both the left- (analytical), and right- (artistic) parts of our brains. It is meant to strengthen and heal relationships within families and communities. Both the classroom design and the curriculum are based on indigenous cultural values. The curriculum is designed to support both environmental and language literacy through the performing arts, music and poetry. The curriculum is tied to NextGen Science and 21st Century Academic Standards. 

The curriculum is based on nature and spirit poetry, chants and songs I and others have written or will write. Each stanza of the poems has a multi-generational lesson plan associated with it. Some of the lessons can be done in public schools, some will be designed for an outdoor classroom (see design above). 

Poetry, chant and dance in both regional native language and in English will be developed to support both language and cultural literacy. The final evaluation of each lesson will be based on students developing and performing interpretive spin-off poems, dances and chants in both their native language and in English. Lesson planning is done in a spreadsheet format so that there is a column for every generation, divided into Elementary, Secondary-College, Parent, Grandparent columns. 

The use of poetry, music and interpretive dance to teach STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and connect to nature will fire up students. Most commonly, students are expected to absorb knowledge through books and lectures, and then spit it out back on tests. By having the evaluation be related to poetry, music and interpretive dance, the student's bodies get involved with the learning. This will cause the learning to become intrinsic, rather than just rote learning that will soon be forgotten. Have you recently run into anyone who does not love music and dance?

 The I-STAMP! Curriculum will help to heal some of the many divides and injustices in our country. These divides include:

*between the generations; 

*between science and art/spiritual/cultural values; 

*between the analytical and intuitive/artistic parts of our brains; 

*between the natural world and people; 

*between peoples of different cultures and socio-economic status.