STEM to STEAM learning: what is the difference?
STEM has been a buzzword since the early 2000s, but has lately been picking up more excitement due its importance in the rapidly changing workforce.
STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. It is so essential to education that districts around the United States receive financial funding for STEM initiatives that allow teachers to prepare young learners for the tech-heavy society that awaits them. We live in a world where knowledge of science and technology offers recent graduates a great advantage in the job market.
However, STEM does not contain all of human knowledge, which is why some teachers feel that STEAM, which adds an A for “Art,” is the best course of action (and some extend it even further to become STREAM, with an R for reading and writing).
STEM places a clear emphasis on scientific ideas. The same ideas are investigated in STEAM, but through inquiry-based and problem-based learning techniques that are applied during the creative process.
STEAM is not a new concept. People such as Leonardo Da Vinci have shown us the importance of combining science and art to make discoveries.
An integrative approach to STEM and STEAM education
STEM activities involve learners in complex projects that require the application of skills and knowledge from all of the STEM disciplines at once, which is closer to how they will use their abilities in their real jobs one day. STEM is already in itself an interdisciplinary way to teach scientific and mathematical subjects.
Learners might find surprising connections between the aesthetic and scientific components of their schoolwork by using STEAM. A gifted painter might realize that chemistry is necessary for the creation of paint and that knowing its elements can help an artist choose and use materials more effectively; a talented musician might develop an interest in the physics of sound—what causes a guitar's strings to sound the way they do? How does an air current cause a flute to make music?
When STEAM concepts are properly implemented, the perceived conflict between science and the arts is disproved, which benefits learners' interests and potential jobs as well as their ability to think critically and creatively.
Science is for everyone
Adding the possibility of artistic expression to activities designed to focus on science, technology and math makes scientific subjects more approachable even to those students who are already convinced they have no inclination for them, and that opens up new paths for them once they find out that if they work hard enough, it is not true that they cannot do science.
If a STEAM approach to learning, which makes science and mathematics less intimidating and demonstrates that anyone can succeed at a complex project requiring multiple skills, can keep students interested despite their challenging circumstances and reduce the dropout rates of girls and minorities from STEM subjects, the future scientific community will be more diverse, and people from all walks of life will be able to contribute their distinctive ideas and points of view.
The future is undoubtedly in STEM fields given the tremendous advances in science and technology, but adding an A could be the difference between development and stagnation.
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