The Gallery at Penn State Lehigh Valley will host "IDEA: Inter-District Experience in the Arts," a collaborative exhibition by the AP Portfolio art students at Palisades and Southern Lehigh High Schools, from March 1-26. The exhibit is free and open to the public.
This exhibition of student-created, gallery-quality paintings utilizes the PA Arts and Humanities Standards as guidelines. The high school teachers, Cathy Beck and Anne Sikorski-Schneider, developed the lesson for the IDEA project by surveying the student stakeholders for relevant interests and issues. The teachers then met to exchange ideas and collaborate on the lesson which germinates from these student-relevant themes and the PA Art and Humanities standards.
Students participating in the annual inter-district art experience observe how students from the other participating schools solve the same art problem. Students from both schools interact with each other while creating their own paintings to create a visually cohesive exhibition. The final student art transcends the individual project scope as a collaborative effort for the community exhibit. This art exchange and experience enhances teaching and learning to broaden the definition of art education thereby dissolving the walls of classrooms and the barrier of distance between schools.
The exhibition is free and open to the public. The gallery is located on the third floor of the campus at 2809 Saucon Valley Road, Center Valley, and it is open Monday-Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., and Thursday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. For more information, contact Ann Lalik at 610-285-5261 or e-mail aal13@psu.edu.