Full STEAM Ahead: A STEAM Primer

Put together an art teacher, music teacher and a science teacher-what would you get?  At Dayton Regional STEM School in Dayton, Ohio, you would get origami butterflies, illustrated storybooks and watercolors of cells. At Taylor Elementary School in Arlington, Virginia, you would get music and paintings on the life cycle of flowers. These are just a few projects that were born from a STEAM-Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics-partnership between art science, and music teachers.

What is STEAM?

Advocated by John Maeda of the Rhode Island School of Design, STEAM integrates art and design with STEM concepts. Even though STEAM is grounded in the premise that creativity is the basis of all innovation, you might not think that art and science would be likely partners.  But are they similar or polar opposites?

Both Kate Cook and Jenny Montgomery from Dayton Regional STEM School claim that their partnership is successful because their content areas, art and science, can harmonize together.  “Both artists and scientists aim to explore and make sense of the world,” Cook said. “While we use different lenses, they are often complimentary.”

Working together inspired both, Cook and Montgomery, to think about content in different ways.  Much of what being learned in my biology class is, Cook says, “visual in nature.”  In science, students spend a great deal of time creating and interpreting models through repeat experimentation. And just as scientists explore discovery through experimentation, artists also create a design or structure using form and function, sometimes using engineering and mathematical concepts to build their desired artistic outcome.

In the end, artists and scientists take risks, make mistakes and start over again all with the ultimate end of innovation or discovery. With Jeremy Ferrar, Bianca Sanchez and Elizabeth Ashley at Taylor Elementary, they found through collaboration that their students learned to better communicate and work as a group. 

“Rather than telling them what to do,” said Sanchez, “we present them with a problem which forced them to think creatively.” 

In fact, multiple studies show that a strong arts education contributes and improves a student’s cognition, memory and attention skills in the classroom, an attribute that Taylor Elementary attests to.  (Hardiman, 2009) Further, a 2002 study by Americans for the Arts found too that an arts education strengthens problem-solving and critical-thinking skills thereby increasing a student’s overall academic achievement in school.  (Arts, 2002) So it seems that both disciplines use skills interchangeable with the other.

To see the full article, check out Full STEAM Ahead at Parent Guide magazine.