Author: Nicole Ahn
By Nicole Ahn, 2025 DNCR Teacher Ambassadors and Arts Integration Specialist at Magellan Charter School, Raleigh
Imagine the school’s gym walls coming ALIVE with the mounted heads of 68 paper mache animals! Each colorfully painted creature is the culmination of a 4th graders’ research and curious observation of an animal found at the North Carolina Zoo.
Picture enthusiastic 5th graders hiking over hills, through gardens and around sculptures exploring the park at the North Carolina Museum of Art……in the name of SCIENCE!
Integrating the arts is not new; research has shown that both teachers and students benefit from an interdisciplinary approach to education. When we integrate art into the curriculum, we give students a creative way to deepen their understanding of concepts they are learning. Creative projects based on curriculum become an extension of learning that fosters a deeper connection to content and it’s FUN! The collaborative teaching practices which pair the art teacher with the classroom teacher build community, confidence, and JOY.
My school has embraced the integrated arts model these past 4 years and we now have several projects at each grade level that students have come to anticipate as milestones and highlights for the year.
The Zoo-seum
In 4th grade science, students learn about animal adaptations. At the end of this unit, each student is assigned an animal (through an online randomizer) to research. Each of the possible “random” animals is one that can be found at the NC Zoo in Asheboro. Students have the opportunity to observe their research sub
ject animal on a field trip to the Zoo. Taking what they already know of the animal, students are excited to find and observe their animal in its zoo habitat. The kid that was once disappointed about a randomly assigned gila monster now delights at watching the flicking tongue and marvels at the unique pigmentation of this large lizard. The learning comes alive!
Back in the art room, 4th graders take their zoo experience 3-D. First, the animal head is sketched front and in profile. Then the head is sculpted in playdough. Is the playdough animal recognizable to the table mates? Why not? Try again! For the next 6 days, students sculpt the armature for their animal head out of newspaper and masking tape, cover the armature in paper mache, mount the head to cardboard, paint and add details. Giraffes get fake lashes, harbor seals grow fishing line whiskers, lemurs get their red ruff from orange feathers, and Thompson’s gazelle’s antlers are crafted from foil. The engineering, decision making, problem solving, and creativity culminate in projects the students will never forget. On Zoo-seum day, parents pack the gym, scanning QR codes to hear students’ voices report about each animal while visually enjoying the creative wonder of these beautiful animals.
Systems of Filtration at the NCMA
5th grader science students learn about the water cycle. We know about water in North Carolina; accustomed to heavy rains, we are no strangers to flooding. Did you know the NCMA has catch basins that hold onto rainwater in the upper parking lot? These catch basins are beautifully integrated into the gardens and engineered to filter the rainwater as it travels downhill until it reaches a beautiful retention pond. It’s the science of this filtration system that brings our 5th graders on a field trip to the art museum, but there is much more to experience and learn! Students are divided into 5 rotations, getting them out and around the museum grounds. In addition to learning about the water filtration process, students also interact with the art and nature in the museum park on this active, interdisciplinary field trip. Teachers led different rotating stations which included such topics and tasks as:
Water filtration - follow the path of filtered water from catch basin to retention pond and look for the resident otter in the pond!
Nature in art/art in nature - compare sculptures "Ogromna and Askew" and sketch your own interpretation.
Native NC plants and art etchings - make crayon rubbings of the etchings in the volunteer garden. After, discuss Tim Purus’ A Closer Look etchings, featuring local flora and fauna
Filtered light - students relax and try meditative yoga under a willow tree that softly filters daylight in NCMA park.
The NCMA has more to offer than the world class collection of art housed in its buildings. To wrap up our day on the grounds, we have lunch on the ellipse overlooking the huge iconic loops of the art piece called Gyre, now the NCMA’s logo. We continue our science and art connections back at school when we take our crayon rubbings and fold them into an art booklet. This serves as a reminder and a keepsake of our day of wonder. The students repeat after me, “Science can be arty and art can be sciency!”
The NC Zoo and NCMA are essential resources for our school. These are only 2 of over 100 fantastic state-wide sites that are part of the NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. As a DNCR Ambassador, I have traveled to several inspirational sites this year. I can’t wait to collaborate with my teachers in new ways as we explore the richness of our state and provide our students with new creative learning opportunities.
Additional Resources:
"Why Arts Integration? Two Big Reasons"
"What is Arts Integration: An Educators Guide"
NCMA Learn
NC Zoo Educator Resources