STEM/STEAM: Science, Technology, Engineering, Math and the Arts
Here you'll find articles and resources for STEM+Arts education, also known as STEAM. Topics include science, technology, engineering, math and arts education and range from research reports to feature articles to profiles of makerspaces to news about new STEAM and STEAM initiatives in schools.
Burnett Middle School of San Jose, CA increased its state Academic Performance Index from 654 in 2009 to 740 by 2014, blowing away the growth rates of similar schools.
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 05/26/17
To find out the impact of federal "voucher" programs that enable children from families with low income to attend private schools, one needs to look no further than Washington, D.C., itself. The District of Columbia Opportunity Scholarship Program was set up by Congress in 2004 to issue scholarships to students through a lottery process, not unlike what's being proposed by the current administration but on a much smaller scale.
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 05/26/17
Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Ohio are among the states that have added more “STEM learning ecosystems,” or regions that provide pre-K–16 students with science, technology, engineering and math resources and tools as part of the national STEM Learning Ecosystems initiative. Each ecosystem is led by the STEM Funders Network.
Jad Abumrad doesn’t do things by the book, and he’s been rewarded for it. He’s co-host and creator of “Radiolab,” a popular public radio show that’s broadcast on more than 500 stations across the United States and has been downloaded as a podcast over 9 million times per month. He’s a 2011 MacArthur “genius grant” fellow, and his radio program won the George Foster Peabody Award in 2010 and 2015.
Microsoft has released a new version of Minecraft: Education Edition that adds support for Code Builder, along with a number of other new features and improvements.
There is always a new new thing in technology. In contrast, in K-12, at the heart of the classroom is — and will be for the foreseeable future — the old old thing: curriculum. But, where is that curriculum, the fuel for the 1-to-1 classroom, going to come from? From the new new thing, of course – as we argue in this week’s blog post.
- By Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway
- 05/22/17
Alongside Google’s annual developer conference last week, the company held its fourth annual Youth I/O event at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, CA. Neary 150 students in grades 5-7 from around the Bay Area participated in activities that focused on digital storytelling, inventing, science and computer science (CS), according to a company blog post.
A Kickstarter campaign is two weeks and $17,000 away from its goal to create a short pilot and app featuring a female developer and address the dearth of role models in the field.
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 05/22/17
More students in Detroit Public Schools will be participating in after-school programs in science and engineering, thanks to a $250,000 grant from Google to the Michigan Engineering Zone, a makerspace project of the University of Michigan College of Engineering.
At Google I/O 2017 this week, Google revealed plans to bring augmented reality to its immersive education platform Google Expeditions. Expeditions AR will enable students to see 3D models of objects like volcanoes, DNA molecules and more up close in a virtual environment.