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We live in a world where you can't understand science without technology, which couches most of if its research and development in engineering, which you can't create without an understanding of the arts and mathematics.
I came to this realization while studying the common factors of teaching and learning across the STEM disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and math. These fields can be intimidating to some students and traditionally do not attract many minorities or women. Many of those who do decide to pursue STEM careers do so without the important knowledge and skills that come from studying the arts.
Social, fine, manual, physical, and liberal arts actually expand on and influence the traditional STEM fields of study. For example,
* Language arts is a means to share ideas, life experiences, and perspectives.
* Manual and physical arts influence such areas as ergonomics.
* Fine and musical arts reflect society's values and directions in the past and present.
* Social and liberal arts are a context for studying attitudes, ethics, and customs.
All of this comes together in the STEAM framework, which is based on this simple definition: Science and Technology, interpreted through Engineering and the Arts, all based in Mathematical elements. The goal of STEAM is to teach students how to better learn and apply new knowledge from a multidisciplinary, reality-based perspective.
The Framework
Education should more naturally reflect the world it teaches about. STEAM education strives for functional literacy- an ability to transfer knowledge with higher-order thinking between disciplines-and a FUNctional literacy-an ability to learn about and keep up with the modern world and to affect it through individual passions and skills. STEAM incorporates non-core classes into the STEM-based curriculum to stress the common linkages among all...