Welcome to Paracosm

The Pando Project is my community service project which I began developing two years ago.
Art is often overlooked in k-12 education despite its many benefits.   Learning about and practicing art regularly has been shown to increase  student’s rates of graduation, decrease problems in behavior, and  increase students’ retention of information.  According to Early   Childhood News, “art enhances creativity, imagination, and self-esteem…   [and] encourages cognition, critical thinking, and learning” (Reyner  1).  On top of that, art, or skills associated with practicing art, are  important in many career fields. For example, creativity, critical  thinking, and problem-solving skills are useful in any workplace where  one must make decisions.  Precision and attention to detail can be  applied to many hands-on jobs such as jobs in the medical and  engineering fields, and knowing about art history is important in jobs  related to cultural studies.   
This is why I created The Pando Project, a project which aims to give  back to my community by connecting high school volunteers with  elementary school students to give younger students a chance to learn  about and explore art, and older students the chance to gain teaching  experience. 
Check out the Pando Project Website here