STEAM:

The Arts in Relation to STEM Education

Arthur Eisenkraft, Distinguished Professor of Science Education, University of Massachusetts - Boston

Edward Morris, Co-Founder and Director, The Canary Project, NY

Dain Olsen, Chair, Media Arts Educator, ArtLab High School, CA

Lisa Yokana, Arts Educator, Scarsdale High School, NY

STEM to STEAM

Arthur Eisenkraft

UMass Boston

Pas de Deux

by Normal McLaren

Nude Descending a

Staircase, No. 2

By Marcel Duchamp

Black Square and

Red Square

By Kasimir Malevich

A Sunday on La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat

STEM to STEAM

• Purpose of infusing the arts

– to better engage the students OR

– to increase understanding of science?

Quantoons by

Tomas Bunk

www.nsta.org

Light and Sound Show

Active Physics

Arthur Eisenkraft

Artist as Chemist

Active Chemistry

Arthur Eisenkraft

STEM to STEAM

• Does STEAM imply that the arts are

infused in STEM or

• that STEM is infused in arts education?

• We don’t want Arts to be subservient or

the handmaiden of science.

―Arts and crafts develop such skills as observation,

visual thinking, the ability to recognize and form

patterns, and manipulative ability. They develop habits

of thought and action that include practicing,

persevering, and trial-and-error problem solving. They

pose new challenges,.... And they provide novel

structures, methods, and analogies that can stimulate

scientific innovation.

For all these reasons, finding ways to foster arts

education alongside science education—and, even

better, finding ways to integrate the two—must become

a high priority for any school that wants to produce

students capable of creative participation in a science-

dominated society like ours.‖ (Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein, Educational Leadership, February

2013)

Bruno Munari’s

Drawing a Tree, 1978

Rule of growth: the

branch that follows

is always slenderer

than the one that

preceded it

Calculating the

height and

circumference of

the tree

Fibonacci’s

Series

http://britton.disted.camosun.bc.ca/fibs

lide/fib31.gif

Design

Thinking(adapted for Scarsdale

High School by Margaret

Favretti)

http://briccommunitymedia.wordpress.c

om/2011/12/02/the-canary-project-the-

gowanus-caught-in-the-act /

“Imagine Mars”

A collaboration with

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

NASA

Design-based Challenge:Create a sustainable community on Mars

REFLECT what makes a community survive, and thrive?

DISCOVERchallenging environmental conditions

and possible solutions.

IMAGINEa thriving community on Mars.

CREATEdesigns for their Martian community.

SHAREwith local and Imagine Mars Project communities.

POSSIBLE ACTIVITIES:MARS STORIES-MYTHS/HISTORICAL

PLANETARY SCIENCEENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

COMMUNITY INVESTIGATIONCULTURAL DEVELOPMENT

SUSTAINABILITYDESIGN/ENGINEERING:

Landing EquipmentEnvironmentArchitecture

TransportationClothing

RecreationAesthetics