The Lied Center presented the Liz Lerman Dance Troup, from Maryland, to preschoolers from Lawrence Schools. Children watched and participated in the third year of the program Monday and Tuesday.

Starting this school year, the Lied Center will expand its free school-only performances to include Lawrence middle and high school students.

The expansion of the yearly school performances, which were previously only regularly provided to students in elementary school, was made possible by the fundraising efforts of the Lawrence Schools Foundation and Friends of the Lied. The performances offer students a unique educational opportunity, said Adina Morse, executive director of the Lawrence Schools Foundation.

“This certainly provides experiences that students wouldn’t necessarily get in their day-to-day at school,” Morse said.

As part of the program, study guides and teacher workshops are available to help educators incorporate the performances into their curriculum, said Anthea Scouffas, director of engagement and education at the Lied Center. Scouffas said the performances, which are selected to match well with each age group, provide a way to integrate the arts with other subjects.

“The arts are such a great, rich way of experiencing a topic,” Scouffas said.

For the upcoming school year, kindergartners through second-graders will see “Big Bad Wolf,” and third- through fifth-graders will see the theater performance “Mistatim,” set on the boundary between a Native American reservation and a ranch. Middle school students will attend the theater performance “Out of Bounds,” which deals with the effects of cyber bullying, and high school students will attend the hip-hop influenced musical performance “Black Violin.”

In addition to the educational aspect, Morse said, exposing students to a wider variety of performing arts throughout their school years could introduce them to something they are passionate about.

“You just never know what that thing is that can excite a student, and it can change lives,” she said.

The two organizations hosted a fundraising event earlier this year that raised enough money to pay for the expansion of the school-only performances for four or five years, Morse said. They will host another event on Nov. 2, and hope to raise enough funds to make the districtwide performances permanent.