Wait why is there an A in STEM?

29 May Wait why is there an A in STEM?

STEAM, it is the first time I have heard this term with an A. The full acronym stands for Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and art. How do you incorporate art with the rest of the terms? I couldn’t see a connection, until I joined the STEAM team. Our focus has been to asses the status of current citizen science and science literacy programs, evaluate possible new programs and report on useful tools that may help us improve both types of programs. In order to gather this data, we have interviewing stakeholders, such as educators, scientist, citizen science specialist, and youth and outreach coordinators. This week we interviewed a woman that works for the encyclopedia of life. She showed us a lot of very helpful tool that allows anyone to create species deck cards. These cards have a picture and some basic information of the specie. Immediately, I could see how Summer Connections could benefit from this tool. The students’ final project consists of creating a report on one organism. Then all of the organisms get put together to create a book. Instead of this book we could use the deck of cards as their final project. I am excited to see what other tools can help us improve the park programs.