fiction that has happened. Before I launched into my second
mission in space, we watched J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek movie and
the way that crew came together, the things they were doing that was all “make believe”, but we did the same thing the next
day. So we were art imitating life, life imitating art as we entered
into the realities of space exploration.
The “A” part is what gives us our culture - our soul. When you
think about all the people around the world who are playing
instruments, creating art, cooking (the culinary arts!) - the arts are
what connects us as humans. My passion with the “A” is that it
covers everything in the school. STEM education only covers the
technical aspects - it doesn’t address the “why”. STEM doesn’t
inspire our students - STEAM does. We can’t be divisive and
Space Hardware | Photo Credit: Leland Melvin, 2009. Used with permission.
For teachers/schools considering the STEAM approach, what
does that look like when it’s successfully implemented?
separate the two when they are naturally and inexplicably linked
Project-based learning. Starting with a similar problem, everyone
already.
in the room needs to use STEAM to solve it. For example, let’s
say you have a mechanical model helicopter. Your job is to pick
up a battery from one location in the room and fly it to another
When I was a kid, I got started on piano lessons and my parents
location in the room and then sell it as a product in the
were always encouraging me to explore my creative side. From
marketplace. You have to figure out the payload capacity of the
sketching out a skateboard design before I actually built one to
helicopter, measure the lifting capacity, the capacity of the battery
practicing my piano everyday, I grew up fully invested in the arts
to measure how long you could go, you have to have a video, a
and it helped “me” to become “me”. The core of who I am as an
marketing budget, an ad campaign and so much more. I think
individual has to do with having the arts present in my life.
that in many classrooms, we’re teaching to the test - almost
exclusively - unless you’re in the type of school that gives you
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