2023 in Review

For the last couple of years we have been supporting MarketPlace of Ideas for Kids, a North Dakota foundation which presents 12 Technology skill days each year to 3-8th graders throughout the area.

The focus is 21st Century skills of collaboration, communication, creativity and critical thinking.  Reaching over 6000 students annually, MPK's goal is to expose preteens to money management, STEAM based and safety careers by getting theirs hands into the real job guided by those already working in the field.  Students may also pitch a new business idea or invent/engineer new products to compete in the

"Hall of Great Ideas". 

www.marketplaceforkids.org/

  A 21st Century reality is that our public schools are eliminating Art & Music classes in many K-12 schools. There is prolific research that proves music helps children learn to use both sides of their brain and body in harmony (pun intended). 

Education Through Music (www.ETM-Colorado.org) is an amazing organization emanating from New York City that has expanded into a very few cities such as Denver. ETM now provides the entire K-6 music program for 9 Denver/Aurora schools. As a turnkey operation they provide the teacher, curriculum, instruments, materials, and programming which includes solo and group performance experiences.  I saw music taught as his father taught him and the kids loved it!  

www.ETM-Colorado.org

Augusto Boal asked, “What if you could expand the idea of practiced theatre with written lines into your own words, experiences and character growth? What if trusted guides listened to your heart about mean and unfair things you’ve experienced and help you process them differently? What if in this safe place you learned to trust, cope, communicate, and respond differently, toward a better future?”

Mirror Image Arts focuses Restorative Theatre© on disrupting the school to prison pipeline. www.mirrorimagearts.org    

We paired them with a veteran of Theatre of the Oppressed, Center for Applied Theatre (www.centerforappliedtheatre.org), They presented a week long collaborative conference in Denver which included public sessions and specific collaborative workshops between MIA and CAT. It was extremely rewarding to see the exchange of techniques and storytelling where both groups could share and benefit from each other’s expertise and experience. We are looking for additional organizations around the country who would like to learn and utilize these techniques.  The Virtues Project will be presented in 2024.

An opportunity for youth (and their parents), military and war veterans, native peoples and others to reinvented themselves. Let'sDig.org hosts archeological expeditions in the northern US to train students in Earth Sciences and expose them to possible careers in archeology, paleontology, geospatial surveying etc. Participants are themselves reinvented toward a new perspective of our world, what it means to us and how we share our plant with each other and the next generation. 

LetsDig has developed incredible partnerships with Native American Nations to share their land for respectful archeology expeditions. It is a formula to be followed and duplicated. As part of those partnerships, Tom and his students are helping to revamp and establish local museums such as Musselshell Valley Historical Museum in RoundUp, MT. These types of projects mean more jobs, training, and economic opportunity for all in the area.

https://www.ktvq.com/community/out-and-about/roundup-museum-filling-with-fossils-and-starting-expansion