At the turn of the new millennium, there was a concerted focus on the Sciences, with increased realisations that a workforce that was equipped with technological skills was urgently needed to keep up with fast paced changes in Information Technology.
This focus on branches of the sciences became so intense that even world leaders like President Barack Obama said that there should be increased focus on the sciences and mathematics in public schools.
Thus, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) became the new mantra as it was integrated into the K12 education in the United States.
The predominant approach of STEM is through hard data, experiments and laboratory work. It focuses on problem solving of specific questions and requirements in society, increasingly technological.
However, this was seen to be limited and limiting, as the complex web of sociological and philosophical thought that guides much of human life was seen to be absent in such education.
With STEAM, the Arts began to be noticed for their contribution to human thought. It added the essential component of creativity, critical thinking and innovation to lab work that was often bereft of a social context.
It examines similar ideas but through a process of inquiry and problem based learning techniques. The benefits of education in the STEAM stream are immense.
It enables combining the inevitable focus on technology with the experimentation of the arts. More particularly, it asks the right questions of what the implications of the present innovations could be on society today, or in the future.
Combining arts with the sciences also adds perspectives to existing ways of thought and living and answers the predominant question of ‘what if’ of all innovations and ideas.
The idea of STEAM is not new. Leonardo Da Vinci effectively showed how science and arts could be combined to understand the universe. Even oral stories usually follow a pattern of rhythm and beat which is conducive to memory.
The professional opportunities of combining science and arts are immense in the coming years. Linguists, for example, often work as speech therapists, harnessing their knowledge of phonetics with scientific knowledge of muscular lip movements.
Another example is of a jewelry maker who created art pieces to assist diabetics with insulin intake.
Nowhere is this intersection of science and art more relevant today than in the sphere of the environment.
Documenting the history of our world and its treasures is as essential as finding ways to preserve it. Scientists and artists can work together to find ways in which the future of the planet is saved by archiving the struggles and challenges of humanity in this context. This can be done by encouraging higher order thinking which crosses over the sciences and the arts.
The focus on STEAM enables a society that values nuanced discourse and accepts the complexity of concepts, ideas and thoughts.
It moves beyond the binary that mathematics and science explore, focusing on the implications of ideas on society.
It creates new ways of thinking that are innovative, inclusive and multifaceted.
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