[A picture containing outdoor, sitting, water, green Description automatically generated]Have you ever wanted your students to visit a monument, memorial or sculpture that was dedicated to Utah women? Here's your chance! To celebrate the centennial of the 19th Amendment and the 150th anniversary of Utah women's first votes in the year 2020, Better Days 2020 commissioned a Utah Women's History Memorial on the grounds of the Utah State Capitol that was unveiled on August 24, 2020. Called "A Path Forward,"https://www.utahwomenshistory.org/2020/10/a-path-forward/ it honors the women who advocated for the expansion of voting rights here in Utah and across the U.S. To allow more students to experience the Memorial, Better Days 2020 put together a virtual field trip for teachers to use in their classrooms, available at this linkhttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QObgP-m3ZNY. In connection with this field trip, we're also hosting a webinar with the artists who created the Memorial. Kelsey Harrison--MFA Sculpture from School of the Art Institute of Chicago--and Jason Manley-- MFA from University of Arizona--will join Better Days 2020 on October 30th at 10:00 AM to share their experience in creating the Memorial. This 30-minute webinar will provide students with an in-depth look at the process of designing and producing public sculpture and is not to be missed! As part of the webinar, Utah students can "Ask the Artists"! The artists are eager to engage with students' questions about the Memorial, whether about the artistic process, the nuts and bolts of creating a large scale public sculpture, how the artists felt about the history, special experiences they had along the way, or anything else. This special opportunity to "Ask the Artists" is time sensitive. Please submit questions by October 26 via email to info@betterdays2020.commailto:info@betterdays2020.com with "Artists Webinar" in the subject line. We'll ask selected questions during the webinar, so please include the student's first name and school so we can acknowledge them individually. The webinar will be available online after October 30 for classes who aren't able to watch live. We look forward to having students experience this incredible work of art and to engage with the artists who made it a reality.
Naomi Watkins, Ph.D. Secondary ELA and Library Media Specialist Utah State Board of Education 801-538-7616
