A perspective of STEM and Art.

RE: A perspective of STEM and Art.

maxwilko91 — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 15:04:30 GMT

Great perspective.

Instead of extending STEM into STEAM and STREAM (with religion haha), why not create art courses variations for developing concepts for STEM. Untechnical concepts to spark creativity for engineers and CAD designer alike, and allow those with creative and non technical minds to exercise what they do best.

Engineers are always trying to make things work, design considerations, constraints etc. Which could be why an artistic mind probably has less mind blockages with their work, and how they will allow a shape to form.

Let our strengths show, without restrictions, and give art graduates a new industry to thrive in and develop aesthetically pleasing technologies with ergonomic synchronization for its users.

As we know, art is in technology, but not a lot of artists know that they have a place in a technology company.

RE: A perspective of STEM and Art.

BigG — Mon, 23 Nov 2020 14:02:10 GMT

Think I came across an acronym for that... STEAM (nothing to do with railways).

Of course putting my STEM hat on, I would want to start by looking at what we define as "art". Is it an outcome or is it something derived through a particular process.

But if I put my A (art) hat on, I would say... who cares so long as it is a personal reflection of how you see things using your own creativity.

RE: A perspective of STEM and Art.

Andrew J — Mon, 23 Nov 2020 10:02:08 GMT

Interesting perspectives. I think STEM is vitally important and should be taught from an early age, along with the primary language of the student. It also needs to be placed in a sociological context as it can’t exist on its own which is where the humanities (in which I would place art) comes in. Essentially, an all-round, balanced, education is necessary for all our young people. Streaming them later on in their education shouldn’t be a problem: those who prefer technology can have that as a primary focus with humanities as a secondary and those who prefer the humanities can have technology as a secondary. What is important is that we don’t put off students taking STEM subjects as a primary track by making it boring, promote it as too hard, stereotype it as ‘geeky or nerdy’, or trivialise it with inanities. I’m not a teacher so I don’t specifically know what I mean by inanities: however, for me personally, if a teacher wanted me to write a poem in an engineering class I would be immediately turned off and annoyed - I’d certainly view it as unnecessary trite. That would need to be left to a module that was contextualising STEM to wider society or even, preferably, an English class.

I know I bang on about my involvement in The National Museum of Computing, so forgive me, but we have a heavy focus on STEM and engagement with schools and universities. In fact, the majority of permanent, paid museum staff are involved in STEM.

RE: A perspective of STEM and Art.

Fred27 — Sun, 22 Nov 2020 19:28:44 GMT

Art is great, but it makes me wince when I see STEM become "STEAM" as art is shoehorned in there too. There's not enough technical literacy amongst most students, and if you lump Art in there and focus on that then it's no longer STEM. I'm also sick of seeing contests to develop smartphone apps being won by teams who know nothing about technology (let alone mobile development) who have just drawn a pretty picture of something that will never work. I dread the day someone decides they should make it "STREAM" by including religion too. OK - rant over. [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-2e5e79b3-de05-4119-8b14-1509e1a7528e/contentimage_5F00_938.png:16:16]

RE: A perspective of STEM and Art.

alainlavanchy — Sun, 22 Nov 2020 15:20:35 GMT

A US teacher had the idea to start each STEM lession using some artistic approach:

students had to dance the movement of the earth and moon around the sun
kids had to write a poem on volts and ampères
students had to draw a picture showing what they learnt on photosynthesis.

I will try to implement more of this in my courses. Will let you know.

Regards, Alain