STEM vs. STEAM

[Barry Bonzack]

I am going to take a couple of lines out of a December 2013 Wall Street Journal article. These few lines are out of context, please read the whole story to see the WSJ viewpoint, but I am using them to raise a question of my own.

Earlier this year, a handful of members of Congress formed a bipartisan STEAM caucus, with the goal of drafting and passing legislation to incorporate arts into STEM efforts.

This fall, Stanford University began requiring all undergraduates to take two units of "Creative Expression" classes, including design, dance, music, fine arts, drama or creative writing.

"The arts is part of their being—they're singing, they're dancing, they're moving their bodies," Ms. Truglio said. "It became apparent that there are so many science and math lessons as they're using the performing arts."

The push to incorporate arts into STEM comes as some districts see cuts to arts education. An analysis by The Center for Arts Education, a nonprofit and advocacy organization that promotes arts programs in New York City public schools, found that city schools lost 69 art teachers from 2006 through 2012—even though the system grew by 304 schools during that time.

So here is the question I propose: There is a bill in your state legislature to create a $500,000 fund out of tax-payer money. It has been written to support STEM education, which includes after school science programs and clubs for k-12 students. A senator suggests using identical wording for the bill, but making it say STEAM, so that all after school arts programs can also pull from the same pot of funding. Which bill would you support?

[GaryVoshol]

I think the push to change STEM to STEAM is a reminder to us. Don't cut out the arts in an attempt to expand STEM education. All to often art and phys ed are the first on the cutting block when money gets tight.

Another discipline that was somewhat mentioned is what often is called Liberal Arts. Writing, languages, history, social sciences, etc. These too are very important to have well-rounded individuals. But they're not as often targets for eliminating from schools.

Another area is vocational education. While some of these classes are tech-related - and more and more of them are - we still need people who want to learn mechanics, welding, plumbing, carpentry, and a host of other trades.

And I agree with someone above that business education needs to be available. While many engineers and other tech types decry the "bean counters", someone needs to keep projects on track financially, needs to market the products once they are engineered, and needs to evaluate consumer demand for new products.

OK, someone come up with an acronym that adds A, L, V, and B to STEM.

TLDR: We need access to all disciplines in education. We can't focus just on STEM.

[bstew]

Some people have some questions as to whether the STEAM acronym was intentionally included and whether it refers to art. While I was looking through the DLC, I found this on the recruitment posters:

FIRST® Robotics Competition is the ultimate Sport for the Mind,TM where imagination and innovation come together! By combining the excitement of sport and beauty of art with the rigors of science and technology, teams are challenged to design a team “brand,” hone teamwork skills, and build and program robots to perform tasks against a eld of competitors.

This seems to indicate that FRC is trying to attract and include art more, which means that the A in STEAMWORKS probably refers to art.

[ArthurA]

Many people here have been making the point that we need to include the art acronym as some FRC Robots are 'works of art' and how not including art devalues creative effort put in to on FRC robots.

I think everybody agrees that a great deal of creativity goes into FRC robots. However does this mean that Art has to be a core component of the STEM acronym? I really don't see a reason for this, as why should art have a monopoly on creativity??? For many (most?) people, the word art means much more than applied creativity, and for that reason it dilutes the message, especially as many components of the field of art are completely separated from many components of STEM, in a way that the various subjects part of the STEM superfield are much more closely related. Additionally, the challenges faced by STEM fields are similar, whereas the challenges faced by art fields are not similar to those faced by STEM fields.

Sure, there is overlap between architectural and industrial design fields (to pick a random example), however there is also a great deal of overlap between STEM and many other fields (that are not just peripheral but vital to the advancement of STEM), yet we do not choose to include them in the STEM acronym. For example, I would argue that STEM advancements are driven by skills in the humanities - for example many of the most prominent figures in STEM fields are not just great engineers, but also great entrepreneurs or businesspeople.

[MrForbes]

What is art?

and how can we have this discussion, without a cultural reference?

yes, my dad got a Masters degree in Art History, later in life

My LeMons Rally car:

[Siri]

I think the below (both versions) is true, but can't we make a similar case for mathematics? A la:

Originally Posted by ArthurA

I think everybody agrees that a great deal of creativity mathematics goes into FRC robots. However does this mean that Art Math has to be a core component of the STEM acronym? I really don't see a reason for this, as why should art have a monopoly on creativity??? why should mathematics have a monopoly on quantitative analysis? For many (most?) people, the word art math means much more than applied creativity engineering/science quantification, and for that reason it dilutes the message, especially as many components of the field of art math are completely separated from many components of STEM, in a way that the various subjects part of the STEM superfield are much more closely related. Additionally, the challenges faced by STEM fields are similar, whereas the challenges faced by art math fields are not similar to those faced by STEM fields.

If you're reading this wondering what math would be outside SET, back up and think about all of the different fields of mathematics versus what SET really uses day to day. Yes, we can pick specific examples for any area someone names, much the way we have been with artistic fields. But there's no denying there's a huge spectrum of useful mathematics outside of what springs to mind with "engineering" or "science" or "technology"--that's why it's called "math". This is true for all of them. If I say "engineering and zoology" or "science and mathematical topology", laypeople won't jump to a natural understanding other than the STEM acronym itself. On the other hand I'm sure if you talked to someone of a related background, they could easily explain both overlaps--just as we've been doing herein. I think much of this dissonance is that we're using all the terms to connote a specificity they don't actually mean, which is in part rooted in our a priori understanding of "STEM" itself.

I don't think there's a fair way to quantify these overlaps, and I'm not even really arguing that the overlap with art is as large as SET or STEM. But it's worth asking why we're drawing the floor where we are. I draw it here myself as well. But I have to ask myself how much of "A is the odd one out" is simply from the inertia of us understanding S, T, E, and M as STEM, even though their overlaps are not complete either?

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by MrForbes

What is art?

and how can we have this discussion, without a cultural reference?

yes, my dad got a Masters degree in Art History, later in life

My LeMons Rally car:

You're 24 Hrs. of Lemons'ing an Edsel? Yeah they have an ugly front end, but at least around here that would be a no-no given their rarity. Cool car all right, but IMHO that belongs in a shop being restored, not in a race of junkers.

(That said, more power to you).

----

Back on topic, here's how I see it: Art and Stem intermingle a lot. Some examples:

-A lot of aesthetic trends have been found to have a fundamentially mathmatical basis. Fractals, golden rectangles/spirals, and Fibonacci/Lucas sequences come to mind.

-While aesthetics are often absent in groundbreaking prototypes of new technology, it's an elegant presentation that often gets the technology into adoption (and the history books). Apple is a great example; Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive didn't invent much in the way of new technology; instead they integrated existing technology in user-friendly and eye-pleasing ways. Without the iPod mp3 wouldn't have taken off. Without the iPhone we likely wouldn't have smartphones (at least in the way we do now).

-On that same note, a well engineered product is doomed to fail in the market without good marketing. This includes advertising. Good advertising is both an art and a science, so once again they mix.

-In practice, I find that engineering can often be just as much an art as it is a science. Example: programming. One can slap some code together and make it work, that's the science side. Making it easy to understand and modify, now that is more of an art IMHO. Engineering without the art aspect is generally kludges, which sometimes is a necessity, yes, but often isn't the best way to go about making a quality product.

-Finally, I'll mention Will.I.Am as an example. He uses all sorts of technology to make the music that made him (and the Black Eyed Peas) famous. This is true for many artists; without good, artist-friendly technology their vision will never see the light of day. Likewise, without artists to use such technology the engineers and designers who make such have no customer base. There'd be no Photoshop, Wacom tablets, or Macs.

In many ways STEM and Art support each other. There are plenty of other examples (like the robots made by 254 and the like), but that's beside the point. By adding an A we don't have to make everything "artistic", be we can (and should) appreciate and celebrate the symbiotic relationship between STEM and art.

[MrForbes]

LeMons Rally. Not 24 Hours of LeMons. Big difference.

and you're welcome to buy it and restore it...but that would be a foolish thing to do, with a 1959 Ranger Sedan. They're very common as Edsels go, and have little intrinsic value. And very expensive to fix up. But the fun factor....yeah, they're fun to play with! Brings a smile to many who see it.

And according to an art teacher I encountered somewhere in California, the car is Art.

[Hgree56]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

I think the push to change STEM to STEAM is a reminder to us. Don't cut out the arts in an attempt to expand STEM education. All to often art and phys ed are the first on the cutting block when money gets tight.

I would argue that point in the schools around me. In the past few years, two local high schools had a decrease in funding for the STEM subjects and have had multiple teachers let go from their positions in these fields. However, the Art and Music departments have grown.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Hgree56

I would argue that point in the schools around me. In the past few years, two local high schools had a decrease in funding for the STEM subjects and have had multiple teachers let go from their positions in these fields. However, the Art and Music departments have grown.

This is the opposite of the general trend across the country, and all of my personal experience on the subject.