STEAM explores creative approaches to engaging students in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics.
Researchers in the Creative Arts Research Centre have been involved in two Erasmus+ funded projects exploring Creative and Aesthetic Learning and STEAM education with partners from Belgium, Holland, Norway, Portugal and the UK. We have attended and facilitated workshops at International STEAM week at AP University in Antwerp, Belgium and presented at an international STEAM conference in Porto, Portugal, as well as the Global Science Opera ‘Moon Village’ in 2017.
At home, the STEAM team at DkIT have been involved in a number of SURP (Summer Undergraduate Research Programme) projects both in discipline-specific projects (topics in music and science) as well as projects which have coalesced into STEAM projects. The STEAM projects, which occurred in summer 2017 and 2018 involved DkIT students from two different departments within the institute: Department of Creative Arts, Media and Music and Life and Health Science. For both years a team of four students from the two departments had the opportunity to work on an interdisciplinary project decided upon by the students themselves. The overarching aim of the projects was to develop creative resources for a wide range of audiences to assist the communication of critical scientific and social issues.
In 2017 SURP project students developed a workshop and associated resources aimed at primary school students “Space Cadets-Life on the Moon” which aimed to explore what we need to live on earth and how that could be transferred to the moon.
In 2018 SURP project students developed a range of resources around the theme of “Pollinators” which could be used in a primary school setting as well as other settings such as community groups.
Both the resources developed from the 2017 and 2018 SURPs have been used for a variety of STEAM outreach and community engagement activities: Science Week workshops 2017, 2018, 2019; Pollinators STEAM workshop as part of International STEAM week, Antwerp, Belgium, November 2018; Creative Ireland Library project with local schools September-November 2019.
