Choo choo! All aboard the STEAM Express for a journey to exciting learning opportunities!
November 8th is National STEAM Day—a day to highlight the infinite possibilities that abound by learning about Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math. Celebrated annually, National STEAM Day encourages learners of all ages to engage in hands-on, interactive STEAM experiences, like engineering a 3D paper structure, creating experiments with household items, painting with rain, and more!
Why is STEAM so important? Well, it provides learners with the skills that will set them up for success in the future, including critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, leadership, innovation, and problem solving.
STEAM encourages learners to interact with the world around them to better understand how things work and how they fit in. It inspires dialogue, questions, and feedback. A recent study demonstrated that STEAM learning in grades 3 to 5 in high-poverty elementary schools, for just nine hours of instruction, led to improvements in students' science achievement. According to the Institute for Arts Education and STEAM, STEAM integrates the principles of STEM and with the arts to increase the benefits seen by traditional STEM learning. This helps students "connect their learning in these critical areas together with arts practices, elements, design principles, and standards to provide the whole pallet of learning at their disposal. STEAM removes limitations and replaces them with wonder, critique, inquiry, and innovation."
Families, educators, and communities are encouraged to take advantage of the vast array of learning at their disposal through STEAM. Check out some engaging resources online, or contact your local library to learn more about its STEAM programming!