Making STEAM Fests A School Tradition

Teaching at a creative arts magnet school is fun. We paint, sing, act, and...code!

With the ever-increasing focus on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education, we wanted to bring these important concepts to our students while maintaining our school’s focus on the arts.

That’s why my school, and many others, have changed STEM to STEAM by adding Art & Design. That’s because we believe creativity breeds invention, and we want our students to use art to enhance their STEM problem solving and mathematical thinking skills.

Everyone who attends benefits in their own way. From our teachers, we’ve heard that students talk nonstop about what they saw. They felt inspired and more prepared to address challenges with precision, technology, and creativity.

Since we started our STEAM Fests, we’ve seen a HUGE increase in applications to join the robotics club, including more girls and kids of color.

In addition, our robotics students get valuable public speaking experience. They adapt their presentations depending on whether they’re talking with kindergartners, 5th graders, or adults. Many of the presenters are not natural performers, yet they think on their feet and problem-solve when there is a technology glitch. Parents and former teachers have often expressed amazement at their growth.

Other schools have connected with us too, including one in County Clare, Ireland who wants to develop their own STEAM Fest (they heard about our program through an Irish family whose children go to our school). Our robotics students Skyped with their student council to trade ideas, projects, and creative thinking. We plan to mentor them and stay in touch to see how their program develops.

After our first event, we sent out Google Forms to students and teachers to gather feedback.

We also wanted to share the successes of our STEAM Fest with other schools. So we created a website that explained everything about the event, including pedagological background, logistical information, funding sources, and a list of stations. You can check it out for yourself here.

We also made a number of videos, including one from the 2016 event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDH2iZZrRhs

In 2016, we presented our STEAM Fest idea at the ISTE Conference in Philadelphia and encouraged teachers from all around the world to consider a similar program.