Jacobo Palacios and Rafael Cutillo left families in Guatemala and El Salvador to play music in restaurants and on the streets of San Francisco's Mission District for tips. SPARK follows this duo, Los Cazadores del Sur (The Hunters From the South). This Educator Guide is about the history and tradition of roving musicians from Medieval minstrelsy through the Modern mariachi.

Conceptual artist Ken Goldberg combines robotics and the social behavior of internet communities in a series of whimsical artistic "experiments" where strangers use the internet to jointly control and monitor real life events and activities together. This Educator Guide is about tele-robotics and other new media, technology-based arts.

Master storyteller Larry Reed is dedicated to the study and practice of the ancient Balinese art of shadow puppetry. This Educator Guide explores the history of Balinese shadowpuppetry, Wayang Kulit and Reed's innovations.

Four-time National Poetry Slam winner Marc Bamuthi Joseph is a modern day griot (African storyteller) who tells his original stories through a combination of acting, spoken word, movement and rap. This Educator Guide addresses spoken word, autobiography, and performance art.

SPARK takes a look at textile artist, weaver and teacher Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, who constructs histories of indigenous and non-indigenous conflict through her works on exhibit at the San Jose Museum of Art. This Educator Guide explores the history and traditions of textiles in various cultures, as well as the US/Mexican border.

SPARK watches experimental filmmaker Kerry Laitala's painstaking process as she works on her ongoing tribute to the film medium itself, The Muse of Cinema. This Educator Guide is about the history of experimental and avant-garde filmmaking.

SPARK follows Joe Goode as he and the dancers of the Joe Goode Performance Group develop, rehearse, and perform a dance theatre work called Folk. This Educator Guide addresses the history and form of dance-theatre as an artistic genre.

Paul Kos helped define a Bay Area approach to Conceptual art that emphasizes the elegant use of materials to explore issues of perception, social relations, and life activities. SPARK gets an introduction to his 30-year body of provocative and humorous work at the first major retrospective exhibition of his work - "Everything Matters"- at the Berkeley Museum of Art. This Educator Guide explores the history of conceptual art.

Li Huayi, a painter of propaganda posters during the Cultural Revolution, reinvigorate the centuries-old tradition of Chinese landscape painting with his own, wholly contemporary vision. This Educator Guide explores the Chinese Cultural Revolution and Landscape Painting as well as contemporary painting.

Roberto Borrell's band, Orquesta La Moderna Tradicin, is one of the only musical ensembles in the world dedicated exclusively to the performance of classic Cuban dance music. This Educator Guide explores the history of danzn and the many music and dance forms it inspired.

The purpose of this lesson is to encourage students to examine various aspects of cultural identity. The students will view the film Turbans, which focuses on a Sikh family's immigration to Oregon in the early 1900s.

The activities in this lesson are designed for students to process information on diversity in family structures presented in one segment of the film That's a Family!

SPARK meets Tommy Guerrero, world famous street skateboarder and musician, whose music evokes the sounds and rhythms of San Francisco. This Educator Guide is about street culture in San Francisco, including skateboarding and its culture, as well as contemporary, instrumental music.

Urban renewal policies enacted in San Francisco's Fillmore district in the 1950s-60s provide a vivid case study in public policy, federal and local government, and citizen activism. This important history sheds light on present-day urban renewal policies, such as empowerment zones and welfare-to-work.

This lesson focuses on the music and poetry of Afghanistan, but teachers may conduct an analysis on global music in any given period of history, depending on what is pertinent to the grade level. Students will take into consideration important political events or conflicts, the ruling party of the area, the belief systems in place, and specific cultural features. Students will also learn to identify traditional musical instruments, consider the value of oral traditions, study the ghazal as a form of poetry and song, while creating their own musical works and poetry.

SPARK follows dance legend Anna Halprin, who at 85 years old continues to perform and create dances within the Bay Area and beyond. This Educator Guide introduces students to modern, postmodern, and contemporary dance, as well as to different applications for dance outside the field.

A lesson for students to think about the neighborhood they live in and what makes a neighborhood.

In this lesson, students explore issues of culture and identity and learn about Navajo culture by examining the perspectives of those portrayed in the film, Return of Navajo Boy.

In this lesson, students examine the role of women in the media; critique and discuss different portrayals of women in popular culture and focus on how these reflect larger societal and cultural values.

SPARK visits with international artist Andy Goldsworthy as he installs his commissioned work "Drawn Stone" in the entrance courtyard of the de Young Museum in San Francisco. This Educator Guide is about Goldsworthy and the history of artists working with the landscape and environment.