New push in education is picking up STEAM
Everyone from astronauts and lab researchers to video game designers and science teachers knows that exploring ways to solve problems and develop new products involves creativity, critical thinking and collaboration. It’s one of the reasons that it’s important in public education to ensure that students study science and arts to prepare for careers of the future.
In fact, it’s part of the reason we are seeing a new approach taking hold with what’s called STEAM education. While many people are familiar with STEM education — science, technology, engineering and math — STEAM adds the crucial element of the arts to the equation. Quite frankly, if schools teach a STEM curriculum without including the arts, their students are being shortchanged.
Students of all ages should be encouraged to participate in STEM and arts activities. At Commonwealth Charter Academy, a public cyber charter school, we offer students hands-on activities, workshops, lectures from professionals in the field, special events and jobshadow opportunities in areas of their career interests. We strive to bring real-world experience to everything that we teach, including placing students at internships with businesses in their communities. It allows our learners to build an appreciation of why they’re studying the subjects they’re studying and gain an idea of the multitude of career options available.
That’s important because the real world combines elements of a STEAM education every day. Photographers need an understanding of geometry, physics and lighting to turn their creative ideas into artwork. Computer programmers need to imagine and solve roadblocks before they occur. Our students learn to integrate technology, science, the humanities and the arts.
Here are just two recent examples: At one of our art conservatory events, students created stop motion animation videos by calculating time for the placement of the characters and sets that they constructed, before using digital equipment to capture and edit their short animated movies. Meanwhile, one of our STEM workshops enabled students to design a 3-D-printed prosthetic for a dad who had lost his fingertip. That task alone called for creativity, drawing and communications skills, and knowledge of anatomy, physics and computers.
By combining the arts with science, technology, engineering and math, we are teaching learners to embrace the risks and rigors of problem solving, treat collaboration as a necessary ingredient for success, view every experience as a chance for creative exploration and realize education is a lifelong endeavor.
Young people who follow that course will be tomorrow’s leaders in whichever fields they pursue.
“Quite frankly, if schools teach a STEM curriculum without including the arts, their students are being shortchanged.” — Stephanie Goforth and Andrew Kalahanis