I often get asked, "What exactly is STEAM?" People understand the acronym (Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts, and Mathematics), but when you have to put it together... that's difficult. How do we exact our instruction to hit all points of this concept? How do we create projects that effectively convey our information, ensure retention, and help kids perform well on the big tests that our states are forcing upon us? How do we do that?
Our current class project is focused on the subject of Death. We refer to it as "the Death project." We gave our students an entry document that put them in the role of an intelligence officer for the Pentagon. The scenario is that an unnamed foreign dictator has found the "elixir of Immortality" and cannot die. Their job is to ascertain what it means to be immortal and how that might affect our society. In short, what happens when we cannot die? We asked them to look through five specific lenses: The Arts, Psychology/Sociology, Anthropology, Ethics/Religion, and Science. The students are tasked to culminate this knowledge in a verbal presentation using Prezi or PowerPoint to assist. Also, each student is to submit a research paper that supports their work and defines their rationale for the lens they chose.
In truth, there is a man working for the Pentagon on curing death currently. His name is Dr. Mark Roth, and he's a well known scientist. His work is being utilized by the military and is also helping hospitals save lives. We set the scenario so that they are asked to look at Dr. Roth's work. The particular link that we use for the project is linked here. Google Dr. Roth's name and you'll come up with several excellent presentations, TED talks, and other articles - so I'll leave you to that. In the scope of our project, Mr. Roth's work provides us with the Science and Technology. Students look up his work on defying death and often get complex chemical equations for their presentations. Many students choose to discuss how the equations work in their presentations.
How about Engineering? What are we engineering? What can we engineer? This is a soft spot in the STEAM dogma. What exactly can we create? If you have a teacher with a Chemistry background, it is possible to have the students create solutions comparable to Dr. Roth's, that may perform the same way. What I mean by that is the students could experiment with chemical solutions to create new solutions that have the same or similar effects, test them, and see what happens.
Another thought - that may not be so prevalent - is the idea that we "craft" a response. The "engineering" portion may simply be the construction of a paper or speech. Learning to craft written work; to engineer responses that are credible, is this not also engineering/design? One might say that I'm stretching it, and I admit that the argument is weak - yet I think you all understand my rationale; it's not incredible to think along those lines.
Thus we come to the Arts. How are the arts included in the Death project? Death is the second greatest theme in the arts. Visual arts lend themselves to this project nicely, but how do we connect the other arts? As I stated a week or two ago, I'm currently working with the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir on the Brahm's Requiem. A requiem is a mass for the dead. Essentially, a requiem is music for a Catholic funeral. All of the great composers, with a few notable exceptions (like Beethoven), have endeavored to create requiem's. It's a bit of a composer's right of passage. Brahm's requiem is particular in that he was not Catholic. Also, Brahm's chose Biblical passages that he found beautiful, which deviates greatly from the Catholic "hell-fire and brimstone" style day of judgement movements.
Utilizing the requiem as an art form, along with asking students to connect the visual arts covers two sets of arts requirements If you're able to include technology and chemistry you're now dealing with three subject areas at once. Having them write a paper hooks them academically to English requirements and I made a weak case for design.
How about Math? There are several directions one could go. I suggest taking the math to two scientific levels. The first is to gauge the mathematics that are taking place in the music. Sound waves, ranges, intervocalic distance, noise ratios... all of these items can be diagnosed and analyzed through Physics. The other direction? If you were able to utilize the Chemistry component of the project, then you will able to utilize the Algebra within the Chemistry to make it happen.
This is the idea behind STEAM. Take projects and integrate everything that you can into them. Open your classroom. Make connections to the other sciences. Let the kids see how these basic tenants of life come together and work. Form and function. Always form and function!
Until next week!
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