STEM Needs a New Letter - Jessica Lahey. My father, a retired industrial designer, claims that the seeds of his career were sown during the hundreds of hours he spent building soapbox derby cars with his dad. My grandfather taught his sons every step of building a car in their pursuit of a national soapbox derby championship.
By the time they qualified–my uncle Steve in 1957 and my father in 1959–they were skilled in every aspect of design and construction. My father describes their hours of work together as some of the most enjoyable and rewarding of his life: Dad taught me that a methodology could be applied to any creative task. Ideas could be developed, finalized, and evaluated following a set of logical steps, and he taught me to sketch ideas, make construction drawings, and evaluate concept models. The build required me to master skills and develop an understanding of materials.
A few pioneering STEAM teachers are doing just that. STEAM is gaining, well, steam as a curriculum, even on Sesame Street. STEM to STEAM. STEM to STEAM: Join the Movement. Wheaton High to model project-based learning for Montgomery County schools. This is project-based learning, where educational instruction moves away from a traditional academic setting to an active classroom that encourages collaboration and communication among students.
As the Montgomery County Public Schools system plans to replace the Wheaton High School building in Silver Spring, officials aren’t just aiming for physical classroom overhauls. They’re also planning to redesign the curriculum, expanding a project-based learning environment that will resemble adult work settings and real-life situations. It is part of a larger quest to “redefine the school” and prepare students for “21st century education,” Schools Superintendent Joshua P.
Starr said. “Critical competencies for workers now include skills and knowledge acquired beyond a high school education as well as the ability to apply learning, think critically about information, solve novel problems, collaborate, create new products and processes, and adapt to change,” Starr said. School projects aren’t new. Arts Education Seen as Common-Core Partner. A+ Schools Infuse Arts and Other 'Essentials' Danville High School houses: results improve, but more work remains. Photo by: Rick Danzl/The News-Gazette Heath Blumenstock talks to students in his honors geometry class earlier this month at Danville High School. Image DANVILLE — You can't blame Victoria Boothe and Jordan Allen for having felt anxious about starting ninth grade at Danville High School back in August.... From STEM to STEAM: Adding art to science. Liz Else, associate editor (Image: Jesse Burke) John Maeda, president of Rhode Island School of Design, of one of the US’s most prestigious art schools, wants to turn STEM - science, technology, engineering and mathematics - into STEAM by incorporating art and design.
Why do we need art? Scientists and artists are extremely innovative - it’s just the way they work looks different. The great scientists have models all over their desks; they’re tinkering, playing, ripping things up. And the best artists aren’t sitting there just making; they’re reflecting, thinking, spending years on an idea. STEM to STEAM is a statement about how we believe that STEM will save the economy. What made you want to spearhead this? How are you spreading the word?
What else? Isn’t fine art seen as wildly impractical? Have you produced academic papers? Is STEAM talk tricky when research funds are tight? (Image: Glenn Copus/Evening Standard/Rex Features) Is dreaming important?