More Than Just STEM
From Rick McMaster
STEM started with the idea that its four elements—science, technology, engineering and math—should not be taught as separate towers but rather taught to show how they work together to support each other. (I started out as a math major in college but in my sophomore year I found that I was learning more math through my physics classes and switched majors.)

But the integration of STEM is only the first step. There has been a lot of discussion about expanding STEM to include other elements such as the arts—thus giving us STEAM, even at the graduate student level, “Art training can help engineers think more creatively”. We absolutely need to do this, and I just had a recent experience in the classroom that reinforced my belief. I have the opportunity to visit a local school monthly. The art teacher approached me to ask if I could talk about the science in art and vice versa. Coincidentally, the science teacher asked if we could have an activity on light. What a perfect opportunity! We did activities on Light, Color and Art. Both the art and science teacher joined us in the lab and the students loved it. We mixed colors subtractively; we mixed colors additively, predicting in advance what color we would see. We made color wheels and spun them to see the effect. We talked about Pointillism and stained glass windows. And we ran out of time —so next year, we’ll spread this out over two of my visits.

But we should not stop with just art. There’s a long list of letters that should be added to STEM but we should keep it simple. I like Jim Vanides suggestion that we refer to it as STEM +. And that allows for the flexibility we need in keeping students engaged in STEM, which is our ultimate goal.

I need to talk more about letters of the alphabet but we’ll do that next month with the T-shaped person. Your comments are always welcome.

Rick McMaster is the STEM Advocate at IBM’s University Programs Worldwide. You can follow Rick on Twitter: @drkold

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