The purpose of this thesis is to provide insight on how arts integration in English language arts education increases engagement and achievement in students and teachers alike. Throughout my analysis of literature, local field research in two Central Florida public elementary schools, and my creation of a five-day arts-integrated writing unit, I found that arts integration, especially when utilizing Leonard Bernstein’s Artful Learning Method was observed to show a positive impact on students. Arts integration allowed for a child’s natural curiosity and instinct to create to take over, which created authentic learning experiences for the students. The research also demonstrated that arts integration enabled teachers to utilize their creativity, which in turn positively changed their perspectives on their career and teaching experience. Observations and the research literature examined in this thesis showed that arts integration can be a valuable outlet for both students and teachers, yet not always utilized due to high stakes testing, budgetary concerns, and time constraints in the elementary classroom.

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Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Lee R. Skabelund / Stormwater management is typically approached from different perspectives by practicing professionals. As such, stormwater planning/design is not always completed as a multi-disciplinary coalition of experts using holistic and synergistic methods. For a number of years, engineers and design professionals, particularly landscape architects, have been employing various strategies and techniques to address on-site stormwater management in terms of water quality and quantity. There is increasing awareness that in order to create solutions that are effective over both the short and long-term a landscape architect’s approach needs to account for the health, safety and welfare perspectives carried by engineers, the unique aspects of particular project sites, their surroundings and bio-regional context, as well as the perceptions of clients, other key stakeholders, and the broader public. This research investigates the various criteria integral to developing an analytic framework for ecologically-appropriate stormwater planning/design (Sustainable Stormwater Evaluation and Site Assessment or SSWESA). SSWESA is proposed as a type of decision-tree for site analysis of sustainable systems pertaining to stormwater. Using the SSWESA process is expected to help researchers and professionals make better planning and design decisions as they select and implement appropriate best management practices (BMPs) for a given site and context. My intent in developing SSWESA is to help designers assess existing and potential stormwater functions at the site scale in order to promote sustainable planning and design based upon the important principle: “First, do no harm”. It is also my intent to promote further research related to sustainability by providing references and sources from experts in the various fields related to ecologically-based stormwater management. A review of the literature related to ecological factors relevant to low impact stormwater management assisted in the development and refinement of the criteria for stormwater assessment and evaluation. In this report, the SSWESA framework is tested on a public school property in Manhattan, Kansas to demonstrate how the framework is applied and to understand the questions and issues that arise from its use.

Student studied and presents the principles of Harvard University Project Zero programs The Artful Thinking and The Visible Thinking. The goal of both programs is to help teachers to create a connection between works of art and curriculum and to use the art to develop thinking dispositions of pupils. Student introduces in details principles, reports and impact of the project on the american education system. She then considers it in the context of czech primary school art education and connects it with the czech curriculum domain. The integral part of the thesis is a visual project realized in primary school. The author analyzes different ways of children's thinking and percieving and construction of meaning in the context of visual literacy. On basis of the findings the art project was proposed. KEY WORDS Artful Thinking, Visible Thinking, project Zero, visual literacy, art education, thinking dispositions development, work of art, case study

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