STEM or STEAM, Let's Not Get Steamed Up Over it!
From Richard C. Larson
Recently, with all the emphasis on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math), some folks have been complaining about the absence of attention to Arts. They say, why not STEAM, Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math. I agree, but it does not take Herculean efforts to get there. We are already there!

First of all, let’s look at one of the greatest scientists ever. Leonardo Da Vinci. The exemplary Renaissance man, he is first known as a transformative painter. And musician. And sculptor. But he was also a path-breaking scientist and engineer and inventor. Art and science and math and engineering all went hand in hand. Da Vinci was STEAM, through and through. He remains an ‘existence proof’ that STEAM is not only possible, but most likely preferred.

Much of what appears in science and in engineering really is art. Apple, Inc. is known for its minimalist beautiful designs of its hi-tech products, complicated as can be inside, but artistically pleasing and intuitively understood outside. That emphasis is traced back to Steve Job’s early fascination with calligraphy. The design of bridges can be thought of as an engineering feat, as poor engineering can result in bridge collapse, witness the failed Tacoma Narrows Bridge (aka “Galloping Gertie”) in 1940. But who would say that these bridges are not wonderfully artistic – Brooklyn Bridge, an icon of New York City; Si-o-se Pol (The Bridge of 33 Arches), in the Iranian city of Isfahan; Rialto Bridge in Venus, Italy; and the Millau Viaduct, an enormous cable-stayed road-bridge that spans the valley of the river Tarn in southern France. And there are many more. Similar artistic attributes apply to buildings, automobiles, clothing, and much more in our daily lives. So art and engineering go hand in hand.

Double helix DNA is one of nature’s works of art, and it took artistic creativity for Watson and Crick to recognize it, playing with sticks resembling tinker toys. Fibonacci series create beautiful art in nature, as is found for instance in snail shell geometries. And consider the wonderfully intricate manmade geometric designs seen on many Mosques.

In short, STEAM is all around us. It is up to us educators to bring it into the classroom and integrate it with students’ learning. Narrow silo’ed education, placing math and biology and physics and chemistry and engineering each into its own hermetically sealed tube, is wrong. Nature does not work that way. Humans do not operate that way. Inventions rarely come about that way. Our students should not be taught that way. Educators of the World, Tear Down these Walls!

Richard Larson is the Mitsui Professor of Engineering Systems at MIT. He is also the Director of MIT LINC and the Principal Investigator of MIT BLOSSOMS.

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