Other Tour Options at Kresge Art Museum: University Students & Classes, School, Group, Video, Cell Phone, and Elder HeART.

Kresge Art Museum at Michigan State University is excited to share the GESSO Project, a FREE and innovative teaching approach that assists teachers with core academic curriculum in math and language arts. This project supports the fourth (math) and fifth (language arts) grade curriculum standards as listed in the Michigan Grade Level Content Expectations. The GESSO Project involves up to three one-hour classroom visits with PowerPoint presentations and engaging hands-on learning activities along with a visit to the art museum.

In essence, the museum comes to your classroom, then with a fully provided bus subsidy; your students can visit the museum for a tour and hands-on activities that complement the school GESSO Project sessions. The art term gesso (jes-oh) is Italian for chalk. This glue-like substance is a foundation layer for preparing a canvas for painting, giving the surface the right properties for receiving paint. The GESSO Project is based on the same premise that art and visual literacy can act as an important foundation layer in helping students to process and synthesize core academic curricula. This project is endorsed and reviewed by Dr. Janine L. Certo, Literacy Achievement Research Center, MSU and Dr. Elizabeth Phillips, Senior Academic Specialist of the Office of Science and Mathematics Education, MSU.

If you have any questions or want to be part of the GESSO Project, please contact Cari Wolfe, Assistant Education Curator: wolfeca1@msu.edu or 517/884-0653