With support from the California Arts Council, D.I.Y. ART will enhance K-12+ arts education by equipping teachers with “plug-and-play” multi-media, interactive classroom lab kits to accompany open-access science and mathematics Native American Studies Model Curriculum (NASMC) written by, and centering on, Native Californian Tribes for students located in historically and systemically under-resourced, primarily rural communities in Humboldt and Del Norte counties. Designed to meet challenging educational situations, Art Lab Kits + Native Curricula is an exciting, engaging, and replicable addition to a K-12 educator’s toolbox. By combining pre-packaged bins of curated arts materials with meticulously designed NASMC open-access units lesson plans featuring creation stories, contemporary art, poetry, and traditional crafts, we give overstretched instructors a smorgasbord of plug-and-play classroom curricula while helping foster respect, cross-cultural understanding, and more accurate representations of Native peoples.
D.I.Y. Arts provides fun, inclusive, hands-on, open-access (and low cost) events for the public to engage creatively with mixed media and one another, enjoy refreshments, and take home personal artistic creations. Our project is a socially-engaged, community-centric innovation that partners with local, small, LGBTQIA+, and minority-owned businesses, community-based organizations, nonprofits, and Tribal/government agencies.