BRAINY is a program of the Gregory Allicar Museum of Art with assistance from the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance and the Department of Art and Art History.

BRAINY was conceived to provide arts opportunities for students from Title 1 schools in northern Colorado. Since its inception in fall 2009, more than 5,000 students from Fort Collins, Loveland, and Windsor elementary schools have participated in this collaborative, educational program, taught by more than 400 CSU students.

BRAINY is meant to:

1. Introduce students to the arts
2. Demonstrate the role the arts play in our community and culture
3. Demonstrate to students that the arts can be part of leisure and/or academic pursuits (with connections to other academic subjects)
4. Bring students to a university campus.

BRAINY intends to support and implement the findings of critical links and state standards in art, music, theatre, and dance, as well as standards from all other disciplines. Follow-up is encouraged in the classroom, inspiring arts integration into other academic areas.

Kids go through four sessions in a typical BRAINY program. The morning sessions focus on visual arts and music. After the kids are served lunch, they return in the afternoon for lessons in dance and theater. Each session focuses on an appropriate, age-level curriculum centered on an integrated theme derived from current museum exhibitions. The interactive activities are designed to complement model content standards in art, music, dance, theatre, social studies, geography and math and to address multiple modes of learning.

Through BRAINY, students get hands-on experience in all aspects of art and teachers learn from the program as well.