The Empire State Partnership Grants of the New York State Council on the Arts are awarded only to innovative arts in education programs that involve community collaborations that seek to advance learning. Young Audiences of Rochester has been awarded one of these grants to design and implement integrated thematic units of study that combine the arts as a strategy for achieving recently revised New York State Learning Standards.
Dance-Drama-Discover: Learning in 3-D involved an extensive curriculum development process. Teams of educators, artists, curriculum specialists and Young Audiences arts in education specialists formed three planning teams - Language Arts, Theater and Dance. Each group determined the NYS Learning Standards to be taught and the student indicators required to demonstrate mastery of each standard. The groups then designed a six-week program to achieve their goals.