The science of art: A new approach to learning

Barriers being broken down as traditional teaching embraces different concepts

Students are hurling paint at canvases Jackson Pollockstyle in a new teaching technique that is also teaching them about science and maths. It’s just one way that kids are being taught the more traditional subjects, in a relatively new phenomenon known as STEAM. It’s an acronym of science, technology, engineering and maths, but also introduces arts.

Proponents say it helps children learn by giving them real-life examples of science, helps build creative thinking for the modern world, and helps break down barriers — both gender and academically — around science.

The concept goes to the heart of the science v arts stereotypes, which often pit the two disciplines against each other. STEAM says that you can be both creative and mathematical, both artistic and into science.

The concept is championed by university researchers, career events and an afterschool club.

“I think you do have those kind of stereotypes,” said Craig Grant, director of science engagement at Otago Museum, which runs a STEAM afterschool club.

He pointed to the “science is for the nerdy, geeky ones who don’t have any kind of creative talent” image.

STEAM “is a helpful way of breaking that down”, he said.

“I think even just the branding of it, as it’s seen as kind of cool — you’ve got the Steam Punk and all these other things, so it’s something that kind of decouples the historic, slightly nerdy, geeky, side of things into something that is quite funky and cool.”

It also “helps kids who are into different areas mingle”, he said.

The club has seen the kids looking at the patterns made by bacteria growing in petri dishes — and the physics of flight by designing their own wings.

“And doing Pollock paintings, where they splatter paint on a big canvas, and then talk about fractals and how things disperse and the maths that sit behind that as well,” Grant said.

“You can imagine kids at that age, getting the chance to chuck paint at a canvas, I mean, who wouldn’t?

“That’s the stuff that gives that hook into saying, ‘well, what does that pattern look like when you do it from this distance vs this distance?’ So you can start talking about vectors and trajectories and all that.

“They’re a part of seeing it themselves and getting the connection between the ‘ Ah OK, the closer it is, the less the splatter, the further away the bigger, it’s got this arc, you know gravity is pulling it down at the end’.”

Alyona Medelyan, who organises STEAM Ahead events — a programme to encourage girls and their mothers to think about career choices in those fields — said the concept was an important way of breaking down gender barriers in what is seen as traditionally male-dominated science and tech fields.

She said often girls are directed away from science, maths and engineering careers before they’ve had a chance to consider them.

“I have a daughter myself, and we always make an effort of exposing her to all sorts of experiences, from ballet to putting together furniture — she prefers the latter — but we both work in technology,” she said.

“Mums who don’t have exposure to STEAM professions tend to discount it, and so STEAM Ahead is a way of educating them of various professions where women can work on interesting projects and be wellpaid at the same time.”

You can imagine kids at that age, getting the chance to chuck paint at a canvas, I mean, who wouldn’t? Craig Grant

Most children now will be entering a workforce where technology will be a given, and an ability to be both creative and tech-savvy will be a boon, she said. Those with an understanding of both will be best able to cope in an environment where the jobs of the future haven’t been invented yet. “Future-proofing your career should not be about dropping your interest in literature, history or design and switching into tech,” she said.

“Technology will be at the core of pretty much every part of our lives, and I encourage young people to look out for intersections of fields that they are good at and that are in demand.” She advised young people to figure out their competitive advantage early, and become an expert in it.

Two of the bigger names in New Zealand STEAM are nanomechanical engineer Dr Michelle Dickinson — aka “Nanogirl” — and microbiologist Dr Siouxsie Wiles.

Both are big advocates for STEAM and breaking down gender barriers in the field.

At last year’s Auckland Arts Festival, Wiles, head of the Bioluminescent Superbugs Lab at the University of Auckland, persuaded artists to create paintings using a bacteria solution, which turned into glow-in-the-dark works of art once the bioluminescent bacteria grew. It’s a concept she’s also taken to the US and Australia.

It wasn’t always the case that art and science were seen as two very separate disciplines, Wiles said, pointing to the still-life drawings and paintings of early botanists and Leonardo Da Vinci, “who was an incredible artist who was also an incredible scientist and inventor”.

“Somehow we’ve lost that, somehow it has become more, you have to be one or the other. I think that is detrimental,” she said.

It was time to bust these kind of unconscious biases, she said.

HTo watch a video report on this story go to nzherald.co.nz