The HEAL Focus

HEAL creates and implements educational programs that use the arts to teach children, their families, and communities about health sciences. Here are some key features of our programs:

Scientific Focus

• Zoonotic diseases: infectious diseases that are transmitted between humans and animals.
• Think: Coronavirus, West Nile Virus, or Hantavirus, to name a few.

Arts

• We use all kinds of visual arts strategies, including: scientific illustration, photography, cartographic art, infographics, sculpture, and comic-book narrative.
• Check out our digital art gallery to see some examples of how kids in our programs use art to communicate scientific ideas.

Systems: The Big Picture

• Getting sick is not a simple thing. Lots of factors can play a part in infectious disease – from small-scale things, like how a pathogen (or “bug”) interacts with human cells, to large-scale things, like how agriculture affects the risk of contracting a pathogen.
• HEAL programs aim to support “systems thinking,” thinking about the “big picture” of disease processes.

Kids and Educators

• Our youth programs target children ages 8 – 10.
• Professional development programs serve regional formal and informal educators, from librarians to school teachers.

Communities

• HEAL programs support youth in using art to communicate science to their families and communities.
• We host youth scientific art showcases as capstone components of HEAL programs.