Keynote Speech: STEM Talks

“The Importance of STEAM Education”

Keynote Speech: STEM Talks RI, November, 2018

A wonderful night and a hearty thank you to TIMES 2 Institute for inviting me to speak as the keynote speaker in the first of their series, STEM Talks.

Bodies weaving in and out, spinning, arms lifting up, hands opening, bodies frozen in place. 

Repeat. 

This is how we started. 

Participants experienced the joy of interpretive dance, as they took the challenge of demonstrating different parts of the water cycle in small groups.

The audience, comprised of pre-service teachers, veteran teachers, scientists, engineers, and community members, practiced their assigned processes (evaporation, transpiration, etc.), then performed for other groups as the other groups inferred their topic by the representation of the scientific concept through body movement. 

The importance of “A,” the Arts, in STEAM education is vital in order to be able to reach ALL students. It is necessary for future engineers and scientists to expand their sense of models that can communicate to the general public. It also will ensure that those who choose different careers are scientifically literate, enabling them to make informed decisions, and be actively engaged in their world. 

In order to pull this Science Dance Party off, I needed help. Not being a professional dancer myself, I used collaboration to build and implement this strategy.  Thanks to First-Works, who arranged for Israeli choreography, Rachel Erdos, to come into my classroom, I personally experienced the steps of turning content into motion. Thus began a new classroom opportunity to learn and share ideas—the interpretative dance.

This element of risk taking is essential if we are to further our own abilities as educators and expand our repertoire of skills in order to open the doors wider for students.

I shared my personal story of risk-taking as Science Communication Fellow on the exploration vessel, The Nautilus, and how it led to a transformation in my curriculum. 

My adventure at sea led me to learn about ocean exploration and underwater ROVs. This then led to attending a training in building and implementing small ROVs for classroom use. What started as an afterschool program, is now an integral part of our sixth grade curriculum and continues to expand. We’re currently looking at creating a collaborative competition in Rhode Island for students from multiple districts.  We have already integrated community members,  used the YMCA pool,  worked with engineers, and explored a nearby estuary with ROVs outfitted with cameras. 

Risk-taking can lead to failure.  However, it also leads us to innovation and success. 

Another speaker, Noah Jenkins, also spoke about failure. He shared his story of becoming an engineer.  Math was “always easy” for him and he never had the opportunity to struggle or fail in his academic career. Until grad school. It was at this point where he first had to struggle, and often revise his thinking, in order to be successful. He emphasized the need for this in early years of learning in order to fully embrace the idea of revisionary thinking and growth mindset.

The opportunity to struggle and revise our approach must be embedded in all grades. This can be done using pathways of STEAM, as we transform our classrooms into spaces for design, innovation, collaboration, and joy.