Discussion 2.1 Using Art in a Science Classroom

Art and Science Together Creates “STEAM”

"Nathalie Miebach  focuses on the intersection of art and science and the visual articulation of scientific observations." Taken from www.ritholtz.com.

Science has always fascinated me.  I love learning new concepts and understanding how they apply to my life and everyone around me.  Science, for the most part, is able to explain how and why things happen inside our bodies and around us.  It also shows how these two systems relate and affect each other.  So if science is so interesting and amazing, then why is it so difficult to teach it to our students? In teaching science, the biggest challenge is how to motivate the students and inspire them to study and appreciate science.  There are a lot of scientific terms they need to know and understand.  They are big words that they probably heard for the first time like Adenosine Triphosphate or Deoxyribonucleic Acid.  How can we prevent our students from being scared and shut down after hearing these complicated words and concepts? How can we maintain their motivation?  How can we ensure that these concepts will be retained after they leave the classroom or after a whole year of science class?

There are a lot of challenges to overcome, but I believe that if students experience science then it will help educators to answer these questions.  Laboratory experiments, field trips, projects are ways to experience science.  Science teachers use these strategies, but they are still not enough to answer these questions.  In 2008, DANA Arts Cognition and Consortium organized and assembled different scientists from multiple Universities to conduct a study if the use of Art affects other areas of learning.  The study indicated that there were improvements in math and reading scores, attention, cognition, working memory and reading fluency (Pomeroy 2012).  There is another study by the National Endowment for the Arts where they found out that students from low socio-economic backgrounds show better scores in science and writing if they actively participated in the Arts (Chen and Cheers, 2012) as shown in the table below.

 

I love Art and I find it very interesting, so I combined these disciplines that I love in teaching science.  It is good to know that the results in my classroom coincides with the studies I mentioned above.  Sometimes my students will tell me, “Ms. Ferre, I thought this was a science class, then why does it feel that I am in an Art class?”  The student is not really complaining, he is just curious.  I would tell my students that I love Art, that is why I always use it in class.  After years of teaching, most of the former students that I have talked to remembered the concepts I taught them.  Most especially, the activities that that have done where they drew pictures, created models, poems, music, etc. There would always be a part of my lesson where the students draw a model of the object we are discussing.  Examples would be the cell, types of faults, animals and a lot more.  They also labeled and explained the functions or relationships  of their parts and concepts.  They also created models using any materials they can find.  Sometimes, we use food items to create models and the students eat them afterwards.  My favorite activity is when the students drew pictures of their fictional babies after they combine their dominant and recessive traits with a classmate.  They use the Punnet square to identify the possible traits and then they finish the assignment by drawing their babies.  

Students remember these activities and the concepts very well  They are motivated and excited to do these activities as well.  They do not feel bored since they are not just listening and memorizing the terms and concepts, but they actively engaged but unconsciously absorbing them.  That is why I agree with Debra Shapiro (2010) in her NSTA Report on Reaching Students Through STEM and the Arts  that mentioned, “Teachers of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are discovering that by adding an "A" -- the arts -- to STEM, learning will pick up STEAM."

References:

Chen, Kelly and Cheers, Imani. American Graduate Education (2012, July 31). STEAM Ahead: Merging Arts and  Science Education.  Retrieved on December 10, 2012 from  http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/07/the-movement-to-put-arts-into-stem-education.html 

 Pomeroy, Steven Ross. Scientific American (2012, August 22) From STEM to STEAM: Science and Art Go Hand-in-Hand.  Retrieved on December 10, 2012 from http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/08/22/from-stem-to-steam-science-and-the-arts-go-hand-in-hand/

Ritholtz, Barry.The Big Picture (210, September 30) Art+ Science = Sculptural Data. Retrieved on December 10, 2012 from http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/09/sculptural-data-art/

Shapiro, Debra. NSTA WebNews Digest (2010, January 7). Reaching Students Through STEM and the Arts. Retrieved on December 10, 2012 from http://www.nsta.org/publications/news/story.aspx?id=56924&print=true