Resource Collections
Resources from across the Digital Resources Library, arranged by topic
Featured Collection
Hip Hop Culture
What does hip hop mean? Is it the music with a chest-thumping beat? The rapid-fire lyrics rapped into a handheld mic? Gravity-defying dance steps? Writers turning walls into canvases with larger-than-life letters and illustrations? The answer is, all of the above—and more!
Browse All Collections
Directory Listing
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Collection Africa
Explore a rich tapestry of music, dance, drumming, and theater performances and conversations ranging across a number of countries and regions in Africa.
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Collection America
Discover the multicultural heritage and history of the United States of America through explorations of immigrant life, the lives of legendary pioneers like Lewis and Clark, the modern political system, and significant works of American music, including our National Anthem.
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Collection Ancient Civilizations
From the music, theater, and mythology of Ancient Greece, to traditional music of Chinese and Arab cultures, to the lore of Arthurian England, discover past and present civilizations through their arts.
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Collection Animals & Nature
Is there poetry in the ocean? How can the wind inspire dance? How can the arts represent the change of seasons? Discover patterns and cycles in nature with these resources that address cell composition and reproduction, animal habitats, the metamorphasis of a caterpillar to a butterfly, and an artistic representation of our relationship with the planet.
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Collection Asia
Fish painting, lion dances, larger-than-life calligraphy and a tornado of fire... experience the vibrant diversity of the arts across Asia.
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Collection Classical Music
Meet great composers, explore the vast musical world of the orchestra, study the science behind the instruments, and discover how classical music is anything but boring.
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Collection Dance
What’s the difference between troika and hula? How can dance tell stories and preserve histories? Discover dance and its impact on culture by exploring Ancient Egyptian rituals and Native American legends. Learn how dance tells stories and poems through a language of movement and music, and pick up a few moves yourself.
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Collection Great Composers
Get inside the mind of a composer-- from a popular song, to a Broadway musical, to a symphony, how does a composer write music?
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Collection Harriet Tubman
Four lesson plans focusing on the life and legacy of Harriet Tubman—as depicted and explored through the arts—which help students understand the emotional struggles Tubman faced as she helped enslaved people escape and travel north along the Underground Railroad.
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Collection Hip Hop Culture
Hip Hop embraces these artistic elements, most definitely. But it also has blended and transcended them to become a means for seeing, celebrating, experiencing, understanding, confronting, and commenting on life and the world. Hip Hop, in other words, is a way of living—a culture.
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Collection History & Geography
Travel the historic silk road, explore European castles, and discover the long-lasting influence of ancient cultures on modern society in this journey through the past and around the globe.
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Collection Holidays & Traditions
Explore how the arts connect with our traditions and celebrations. Haunted music and monsters are just the beginning--look here for more spooky Halloween resources. For Valentine's Day, these resources offer ways to look at the concept of love beyond the lovey-dovey. Whether as sweeping ballet choreography or tragic Shakespearean poetry, you'll explore how love can be expressed in different artistic contexts.
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Collection Indigenous Peoples of the Americas
Experience and honor cultures of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas through dance, music, literary, and visual arts. Watch Native Pride the eagle and hoop dances, trace the life of a Navajo weaver, learn how Keith Bear makes a flute, make a listening doll, and meet fancy dancers Larry and Jessup Yazzie.
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Collection Innovators, Inventors, & Explorers
Lewis and Clark explored the American West; Japanese artists Maywa Denki invent performance art "products." These resources can help you discover the process of discovering.
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Collection Jazz & Blues
Foot thumping rhythms, crooning voices, soulful melodies – jazz is a music with a history as rich as its sound. Follow the great migration that lead African Americans to Harlem, meet jazz icons such as Bessie Smith and Charlie Parker, and stop by the Cotton Club and Apollo Theater on a journey through the past of this American art form.
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Collection Language & Literary Arts
How do fables and myths explain the unknown and preserve cultures? What makes a good story? How do plays comment on societal issues? Grab a pencil and prepare to create original poems, experience the Civil War through letters, and parse symbolism and metaphor in this exploration of language arts.
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Collection Latin America
Travel through the diverse cultures of Latin America, as represented by artists from Ecuador, Cuba, Bolivia, El Salvador, Venezuela, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Texas and California. Enjoy art rich in both tradition and innovation.
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Collection Math
Explore how math and art go hand in hand through a study of Aesop’s fables, Tibetan art practices, and music composition.
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Collection Media Arts
Audio, video, animation, photography, and technology. From Depression-era images that captured the attention of a nation, to student-produced videos on local artists, to how to make your own blood and guts special effects, explore the ever-changing world of media arts.
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Collection Myths, Legends, & Folktales
Greek and Egyptian mythology, the story of the Lion King, and the legend of King Arthus are just some of the ways these resources explore the different cultural interpretations of heroes. Then learn the stories of Cinderella, as well as American legends Paul Bunyan, John Henry and Pecos Bill.
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Collection Opera
Get out your opera glasses and prepare to take a look at the history and evolution of an art form over four hundred years old. Learn how singers train and condition their voices, become familiar with some of the stage’s most tragic love affairs, and discover how theatre and music combined can tell epic stories in unforgettable ways.
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Collection Popular Music
"Popular" music isn't just one type of music-- it's just a way to describe music that a lot of people really like. This collection explores popular music in different genres, like the chart-toppers of Motown, the fight songs in football, American styles like jazz, blues, country, bluegrass, and R&B as well as the history of popular American songs from other eras, and just WHY the music connects with us.
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Collection Puppetry
From traditional shadow puppets and lion dance celebrations from China, to bringing the beloved characters of children's book authors Leo Lionni and Mo Willems to the stage, to very different interpretations of the legend of The Lion King from both Disney and Sogolon Puppet Theatre from Mali, discover the vast world of puppetry, including activities on how you can make your own puppets at home.
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Collection Russia
Sputnik and space travel, a soviet-born ballet dancer and choreographer of incredible talent, and a dance called the troika – learn about all this and more in this journey through Russia’s art and history.
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Collection Science
Explore how art influences the scientific world (and the science behind the art). Learn about the lives of butterflies through dance, use mobiles to recreate the solar system, and discover the colorful world pulsing inside our own cells.
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Collection Sound & Acoustics
How do composers "hear" outer space? How did Beethoven compose music when he couldn't hear? Browse lessons and multimedia that explore the art and science of the world of sound around us.
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Collection Space
Music and mobiles take flight in these resources that explore the relationship between artist, art, and the cosmos, including the special meaning behind the stars and early African-American spirituals.
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Collection Storytelling
Lesson plans, activities, and other resources that focus on telling stories through theater, music, dance, writing, and visual arts.
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Collection Theater
Take a peek behind the red curtain and discover the artistry and history behind the world of theater. Explore the playwriting process first-hand, learn about the cultural impact of performance, and read and perform some of the most influential works of the 20th century.
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Collection Visual Arts
Fasten your smock, get out your art supplies, and prepare to get your hands dirty. Examine the physics behind Alexander Calder’s mobiles, the symbolism in the botany rendered in renaissance paintings, and the careful patience used in weaving a wampum belt in this exploration of a wide range of arts.
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Collection Women in the Arts
From providing historical inspiration to preserving cultural traditions to pushing the boundaries of creativity, explore the contributions women have made (and continue to make) to the arts.
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Collection World Arts & Culture
From the weather patterns of the Kapiti plain to the history of the Mexican corrido, travel across the globe to explore world cultures and the art they produce.