44 East Sixth Street
Cincinnati, OH 45202
CAC Youth Education Programming
| The CAC’s Education Department makes our exhibitions accessible to the widest possible audience by providing interpretive information, and through programs for children and adults. The primary goal of our Youth Education Programs is to bring high-quality arts education to as many individuals from as diverse a collection of backgrounds as possible. Our programs provide an environment that inspires creativity, promotes critical thinking, and problem-solving skills, encouraging interactions and dialogue among children, families, and teachers. This programming also offers student tours, hands-on activities, and experiences with content that aligns with national and state education standards and can be linked to classroom lessons. We encourage artistic and personal development by providing opportunities for people of all ages to create unique art projects inspired by CAC exhibitions and novel themes. We continue to develop projects that are relevant to the exhibits and learning levels of children. The support of the Charles H. Dater Foundation would be extraordinarily valuable as it would assist us as we continue to activate and build on the resources provided by the CAC Creativity Center. Program Results: The CAC is pleased to report on the success of our CAC Youth Education Programming. The CAC is immensely grateful to the Charles H. Dater Foundation for your generous and consistent support which has to a significant degree facilitated our ability to provide education programming to traditionally underserved young people across Greater Cincinnati for many years. In particular, your support grant funding has been vital as we have worked to activate and enliven our new education facilities as well as while we’ve shepherded our institution and programming through staff changes, new strategic planning efforts, and shifts in fundraising strategy. As mentioned in previous years’ reports, our reach and the depth of our engagement has been bolstered and expanded by our sixth-floor CAC Creativity Center. This space has been transformative in terms of the ways in which it supports our programming, allows for multiple smaller-scale exhibits and community-engagement activities/projects, and the attraction it has served as while we continue to build engagement and attendance. Below is information on the component parts of CAC Youth Education Programming that have benefited from the Dater Foundation’s support and we anticipate only seeing additional positive developments from the use of the Creativity Center and the increased staffing support that has come along with it. Thursday Art Play This weekly program is designed for preschoolers and their caregivers. Activities are selected and structured with early childhood education and development in mind; using yoga, creative play, and open-ended artmaking activities to excite and educate our youngest visitors. Children worked with our educator and early-childhood development expert Elizabeth Hardin-Klink to experience arts projects involving multiple partner organizations. Health and physical development have increasingly played a role, including working with local yoga instructors to incorporate free, age-appropriate yoga sessions each week. Yoga instructors have collaborated with CAC educators to blend creative play and movement with arts education. We have also worked with Cincinnati organization The Well, creators of the Full Body Project and Mindful Music Moments, to weave music and mindfulness together into program activities. Thursday Art Play saw total attendance of 2,663 over the past year. Surveys handed out as part of Thursday Art Play surveys revealed that: - 69.8% of respondents rated their experience with the program with the highest possible score, a 10 out of 10 (26.7% rated it a “9” and 3.4% an “8”). - 100% of respondents agreed that they or their child learned something new. Family Festivals This program allows children and adults to work with local artists, performers, and storytellers to explore the themes of CAC and our Sara M. and Patricia A. Vance Education Center— UnMuseum exhibitions/installations on the fourth Saturday of every other month. Young visitors are provided with various art-focused activities, designed to make contemporary art more relatable. The CAC incorporates STEAM-based programming to all our Family Festivals as well as other education program offerings as opportunities present themselves. For this program specifically, we bring in a STEAM specialist for each session to create an engaging science-based project. -Family Festivals saw 1,810 participants over the past year. Family Festivals surveys revealed that: - 78.4% of respondents rated their experience with the program with the highest possible score, a 10 out of 10 (11.4% rated it a “9” and 10.2% an “8”). - 100% of respondents agreed that they or their child learned something new. Homeschool Wednesdays This offering engages homeschool students aged six to twelve by providing a curriculum-specific CAC tour that offers them the ability to engage socially in a learning environment with their peers as well as curriculum-based interdisciplinary activities. Families were able to explore CAC exhibits through private tours and related art projects tied to state curriculum. Activities are individually adapted for each child’s needs. This program serves an important purpose as many homeschooling parents do not have access to free, high-quality arts curricula, particularly one including contemporary art. The CAC is the only museum in Cincinnati to offer a free, highly-sought-after homeschool program. Through this combination of traditional CAC-based Sessions and Outreach Sessions at satellite locations, we were able to achieve total attendance of 565. Surveys distributed during Home School Wednesdays reveal that: 55.1% of respondents indicated that their child’s engagement during the program rated a 10 out of 10 (33.7% rated it a 9, 9.2% an 8, and 2.0% a 7). CAC School Outreach Program This program provides an intensive, multi-layered experience with contemporary art for K through 12th-grade students comprised of both in-school and CAC-based experiences, a project with a local artist, and a visit to an artist’s studio. This past year, this program served 14 different schools, 400 underserved students. All these youth were able to visit the CAC through tours and artist engagements, exposing them to contemporary art and possibly sparking a lifelong enthusiasm for art and learning. This program resulted in 56 points of contact: 13 orientations, 24 CAC visits, 18 in-class projects, and 7 visits to an artist’s studio. Zero Hunger | Zero Waste Art Lab by Kroger One of the many unique features of the Creativity Center is our artmaking space, which remains available to all visitors, guided tours, and participants in family programs without cost to the visitor. Activities are diverse and frequently change to encourage repeat visits. With materials, supplies, washing stations, and counter space at various heights, this space is the perfect place to have art fun. The Art Lab is open and available with no extra fees and artmaking materials during all normal CAC hours. Classroom in the Gallery These one-hour tours engage students in experiential learning-based critical thinking about the world around them and the art of today using an inquiry-based approach. Education staff and docents design tours that are age-appropriate and create discussion-based interaction. Teachers also have the option to have a 90-minute tour that includes an often-interdisciplinary art project. Tours of the CAC are offered free of charge for all K-12 school groups and community organizations, and incorporate art-making activities. Classroom in the Gallery provided free tours for a total of 1,645 individuals. Contemporary Young Adults (C-YA) C-YA brought 16 teens, selected via an application process, together regularly as a council over a year to take advantage of career development opportunities in the arts. At each session, local artists presented a hands-on artmaking activity or tour. This was followed by discussion among the teens, letting teens share thoughts on the speaker and the arts. This time is also used to work on C-YA social media planning, an arts-focused out-of-state field trip, and a large teen-planned event. The teen event and C-YA Instagram account are meant to engage fellow teens with the CAC’s programming. C-YA’s goal is to aid career development in the arts by introducing teens to art-related careers. At sessions, teens learn new techniques from artists and CAC staff who have found creative and financial success in their careers. Another goal is to learn how the CAC can better address a teen audience, using our council as ambassadors for their peers. The C-YA Instagram account @CincyCACTeens can be found at www.instagram.com/cincycacteens. Artist in Residence This free collaborative laboratory for artists and visitors to explore new techniques and concepts within the CAC’s UnMuseum occurs each Wednesday and Friday evening from 4pm to 8pm. It is designed for visitors of all ages but a Teen Educator is on hand specifically to work with our young-adult audience. With four residency periods each year, CAC visitors get the opportunity to meet a diverse group of rotating working artists. These artists become mentors to many of the CAC’s young visitors who are interested in pursuing and learning more about a career in the arts. The CAC’s Artist in Residence program saw attendance of 1,569 individuals. Participating artists also worked with us to produce Q&A videos for interested participants as well as the general public to view. These videos helped to provide additional information and context for the artists’ backgrounds, education, careers, and the nature/intent of their work. Young Adult Lab (YAL) YAL is a free drop-in art-making program for visitors in their teens and early twenties, occurring every Thursday evening from 4pm to 7pm and providing a safe third space for some of our more vulnerable visitors. Attendees are invited to experiment with mix-media materials, meet new friends, and simply hang out with other teens that have an interest in the arts. The program provides a great deal of peer-to-peer mentoring about school, scholarships, and jobs due to the wide age range. All art supplies and snacks are provided by the CAC free of charge. YAL takes place year-round, every Thursday. YAL saw attendance of 881 individuals. College and Career Night CAC College & Career Night was created due to requests and questions from our teen visitors about jobs, scholarship, and internship opportunities for those pursing a future in a creative field. The CAC has developed this program to empower teens to become agents of their own learning through various support systems and creative connections. The program will offer young adults the opportunity to participate in an annual College & Career Night event where creative professionals teach teens about careers paths in the creative industries. We promote the College & Career Night to schools, libraries, and community centers in diverse Cincinnati neighborhoods. The most recent College & Career Night was paired with a Teen Art Show. This event was attended by 300 teens, a significant increase from the prior year’s 70 participants. Teen Fellowships – This career-building program provides teens with real-life work opportunities and offers a unique learning experience in a diverse and dynamic creative environment. It currently offers ten quarterly apprenticeships each year to teens who will work six hours per week at the CAC for $10.50 per hour. We make every effort to include teens from diverse educational, demographic, and socioeconomic backgrounds, striving to ensure a mix of teens representative of our community. It is also essential that these are paid internships, as many candidates would be unable to apply if not for the financial stipend. Parking aid and bus passes are also provided. |