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Program Angela used at Meadowbrook

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Article Resources

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It's time to improve literacy skills during social studies instruction and ensure that readers of all abilities have what they need to access grade-level social studies concepts.

Join us on Thursday, December 7 for a look at scaffolded materials that provide extra literacy support while building key social studies concepts and skills.

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Newsela | Content and assessment platform

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Content Aligned To National & State Standard, Flexible To Support Relevant Curriculum. Find the Perfect Piece Of Content For Lessons. Go beyond the book.

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Another article with different options

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10 Best YouTube Channels for STEAM Learning

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No, that is not a typo in the title. STEAM (not STEM) learning is the next big movement in education and it's not just another fancy acronym. The STEAM movement collects the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), and adds an "A" for the arts. Why?

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Scholastic article for the arts

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If you've so much as glanced at the Common Core State Standards, you know how much emphasis is placed on literacy. Reading isn't relegated to a single class period each day anymore. Teachers are expected to incorporate literacy instruction throughout the curriculum, and students are expected to read (and understand) as much informational text as they do fiction.

Sound intimidating? If so, you're not alone. "As a science teacher, I thought my primary concern was content delivery-getting the kids to know science," says Emily Kang, an assistant professor of science education at Adelphi University in New York and a former middle school science teacher. "But I've since discovered that it's really about teaching kids the skills to become good scientists, which includes being good readers." Scientists, she says, have to be able to read articles and journals-review the research-before they can build experiments or projects of their own.

To help you and your young Galileos get started, we've taken four of the CCSS ELA-Literacy Anchor Standards for Reading (there are 10 in all), and matched them with fun classroom activities to help you effectively blend science and literacy instruction.

ELA Anchor Standard 4

Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.
Science is a vocabulary-heavy subject. Go beyond handing out definitions of words with these activities.

âœ" Make a word wall. Kang has her students make a Frayer Model for each unfamiliar word, then posts it on a classroom bulletin board. "If a student runs across the word scavenger, he can look on the board and not only see the word but also see a picture of it, the definition of it, and the word used in a sentence," Kang says. Click for a print-ready example.

âœ" Move! "Let students come up with a movement for each word," says Diane Krause, a third-grade teacher at School Lane Charter School in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. "For a word like condensation, they might come up with a movement to show raindrops coming together. Moving, and repeating the movements later, helps the word stick in their minds."

ELA Anchor Standard 10

Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently.
With effort, even your struggling readers should be able to understand grade-level science texts by the end of the year.

âœ" Put the book aside. Jeff Winokur, one of the authors of The Essentials of Science and Literacy, says teachers should let students observe and explore before diving into the texts. "Starting with a book ruins the investigation," he says. "If you plan to do an investigation with worms and you read about worms first, the initial wonder is gone."

Let students observe and touch and handle worms before reading about them, Winokur advises. The hands-on experience will not only help students understand scientific words and concepts, but will give them a reason to turn to the text.

"Scientists usually read because they've started an investigation of some sort," Winokur says. When they come upon a problem they can't understand, they look to texts to learn more. So when your students start to form questions about worms, based on their observations, break out the books!

âœ" Get active. "If your students are reading about animal population dynamics, but 10 of your kids have never been to the zoo, have never really been in nature, it's going to be very hard for them to understand what they're reading about," Kang says. So she often starts science units with an activity to build students' knowledge. "I've used a game from Project WILD called 'Oh Deer!' to help students understand habitat," Kang says. "When we do that before we read, students have a much clearer idea of what they're reading." Click to download the activity.

âœ" Jigsaw reading. Break complex texts down into smaller sections; assign each section to a pair of students. "The students can work with a partner to summarize the text and present it to the class," says Jacqueline Miller, a senior research scientist with the Education Development Center. Breaking a text into smaller chunks and working together to understand it increases comprehension.

ELA Anchor Standard 9

Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches that the authors take.
Science is everywhere, and comparing and contrasting different accounts of the same topic builds students' understanding-and literacy skills.

âœ" Use current events. Hurricane Sandy and the Mars rover are two examples of recent science-related news stories. As a class, read and discuss various newspaper or news magazine reports. (Try Odyssey magazine or Scholastic's ScienceSpin, SuperScience, or Science World.) Then direct kids to the Web to look for more information; they can research ideas and themes mentioned in the reports they've read.

Barbara Plonski, director of Mass Insight Education's Advancing College Readiness program, used a conflict over fishing limits to build students' literacy skills and teach them about pollution, habitat, and life cycles. A news story that detailed commercial fishermen's anger at proposed catch limits piqued her students' interest. Then she helped them research fish population data. "They got two viewpoints of the same thing-the fishermen saying, 'The limits are destroying our lives,' and the fisheries saying that the fish are being depleted," Plonski says. "Then as a class, we worked to figure out the truth between those two statements."

ELA Anchor Standard 7

Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.
Informational texts often include visual representations of data to help readers understand the text. Science offers all kinds of opportunities to analyze illustrations, graphs, and diagrams.

Start with pictures. When introducing a science text to your class, have students scan the text for illustrations. "When you look at the pictures first, it helps you predict what you're going to be reading about," Kang says. "It also helps you visualize concepts."

âœ" Think OPTICally. To help her students systematically analyze graphs, charts, and diagrams, Kang uses the mnemonic OPTIC (overview, parts, title, interrelationships, conclusion). "For overview, we'll talk about what kind of graph we're looking at," Kang says. "Is it a pie graph or a line graph?" The mnemonic helps students look at each part of the illustration separately, then put them all together.

âœ" Create graphs and illustrations. "Have students study how textbooks present data, and then give them a situation where they have to create a graph or illustration of data," Plonski says. "It could be shoe sizes or students' heights." Let students work in small groups, and have each group present their work to the class. Compare and contrast the groups' various methods for visually representing the data.
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Common Core: Reading in Science Class | Scholastic

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If you've so much as glanced at the Common Core State Standards, you know how much emphasis is placed on literacy. Reading isn't relegated to a single class period each day anymore. Teachers are expected to incorporate literacy instruction throughout the curriculum, and students are expected to read (and understand) as much informational text as they do fiction.

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Good article to cite for grant writing

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Article on Literature

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Good for grant writing and citation

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STEAM Curriculum Outline:  Research and Resources

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STEAM Curriculum Outline:  Research and Resources

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Brief overview of one system with links

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Adding the "A"- ARTS

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Some videos to share with students and teachers

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A homeschool reader wrote to ask me my recommendations for educational YouTube channels. Which is a really fantastic question - and deserves a few blog posts, don't you think? Let's start with the best S.T.E.A.M. (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) YouTube channels.

You know that it's hard to sift through the massive amount of channels, and find what's best and age-appropriate for your kids. You want clean entertainment that won't surprise you with a bad word or innuendo. Your kids want something cool and not boring.

One way to find some of these ideas is to use the free YouTube channel app for kids. More info on that here but it's more for younger kids than it is for elementary.

Here I've listed my favorite educational channels that are meant specifically for elementary-age students. In other words, kids ages 5 - 10.

It's important to note that to truly be "STEAM" or "STEM" if you take out art, the content should cross over at least two of the science, technology, math, art, and math content areas. I've also included straight science and math YouTube channels below the STEAM channels.

Ready? Not boring, totally cool, and always appropriate channels coming up. . .

STEAM / STEM YouTube Channels

Vi narrates these interesting videos on topics from spirals in math to Pi and Anti-Pi. This channel is STEAM since she incorporates science, math, and art!

7. TedEd
This channel from TedTalks has a little bit, er, a lot, of everything - math, science, language, you name it with cute animation and friendly narration.

Science YouTube Channels

Smithsonian Science Education Center
From the Smithsonian and FableVision Studios, learn about specific science topics with a cartoon classroom.

6. The Incomplete Map of the Cosmic Genome
Puppets explore the world of science and wonder including genetics and astronomy. Love the production quality and the delightfully funny British puppets - LOVE the puppets!

Math YouTube Channels

I like these cartoon videos that explain about math concepts - it corresponds to the free UMIGO website.

7. Math Bites with Danica McKellar
These are fun tongue-and-cheek videos to explain math concepts like percents, Pi, and binary numbers.

8. Flocabulary
Math, social studies, language arts - these rap songs are about a wide variety of topics. And, they're catchy!

Did I miss any of your favorite STEAM / STEM channels? Comment below to let me know!
Follow Melissa Taylor's board STEAM / STEM Education on Pinterest.
ALSO READ: Geography and History YouTube Channels for Elementary, STEM Apps For Kids, Coding for Kids

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STEAM YouTube Channels for Elementary Kids | Imagination Soup

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A homeschool reader wrote to ask me my recommendations for educational YouTube channels. Which is a really fantastic question - and deserves a few blog posts, don't you think? Let's start with the best S.T.E.A.M. (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) YouTube channels.

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Sample Programs and their Webpages

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steam after school program - Google Search

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdEXlwWd9cY STEAM team continues the Young Engineers Program at PS 18. While the school ...

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Great booklet to launch STEAM with supported research

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Some tips to KISS...

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Technology Solutions That Drive Education

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As the STEAM movement grows, more and more schools are integrating the arts into their STEM curricula. Those who have already made the transition offer these suggestions for schools just getting started:

Avoid the "Traditional Pull"

Dr. Jo Green-Rucker, the DeSoto (Texas) Independent School District's assistant superintendent for curriculum, instruction and high schools says students, teachers, parents and administrators are comfortable with traditional schools, and it's hard to get them to embrace something entirely new.

The traditional pull may manifest itself in questions such as why students aren't getting homework or whether the curriculum will prepare students for state standardized tests. To alleviate such concerns, DeSoto's three iSTEAM3D academies held parent information nights, during which parents were asked to compare the material covered in the curriculum with questions on the state tests and then work in groups to present their findings.

The activity ultimately answered their questions and gave them a chance to experience the value of the school's inquiry-based approach. "We treated them just like the students," Green-Rucker says.

In hindsight, she adds, those meetings should have happened long before the schools even opened. "We should overcommunicate," she says.

Don't Underestimate the Need to Train Teachers

DeSoto ISD spent a lot of time training teachers how to shift to problem-based learning, but not enough on classroom management. As a result, many teachers struggled with keeping students focused and on task.

To avoid similar problems in the future, classroom management strategies will serve as the academies' main professional development focus this summer, Rucker says.

Give it Time

"It takes a year of transitioning to the STEAM mindset and getting your staff to really gel as a team, to learn to talk to each other," says STEAM consultant Georgette Yakman. It's also important to get all staff involved in the transition to a STEAM framework that works best for the entire school. "By the following fall, you'll have a family. Everybody will really respect each other's expertise in the school."

And that doesn't necessarily mean that subject experts will always take the lead in their topics. A child who excels in science but struggles in English might respond better to a science teacher's explanation of the value of writing.

Don't Set it in Stone

STEAM provides a structure for the staff to have adaptable lesson plans that will flex along with society, Yakman says. That way, regardless of the direction that education technology heads or the new gadget or platform that emerges, the STEAM framework can accommodate the different elements as they evolve.

Make Collaboration a Priority

Carve out time for core and extension teachers to meet and plan with each other. Some of it can be done online, but face-to-face meetings are important too, Yakman says.

Start Small

Before taking on a huge project, figure out what works and what doesn't, and get used to the personalities and strengths of the teachers, Yakman advises.

At the beginning of a STEAM program, projects should last no more than a week or two and shouldn't be overly complex. Yakman suggests that teachers start with a tinfoil boat project, in which groups of students design foil boats that can withstand the most weight. All that's needed are a roll of aluminum foil, a ruler, a plastic tub, water and 400 pennies.

Don't Start from Scratch

Many educators teach STEAM activities without even realizing it, so start to collect examples from your staff. Also, reach out to businesses in the area to get involved. For instance, employees from Raytheon work with students in the robotics club at nearby Andover High School.
Interested in learning more about STEAM? Read our feature story "Schools Shift from STEM to STEAM" for more insights.

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7 Guidelines for Building a STEAM Program

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As the STEAM movement grows, more and more schools are integrating the arts into their STEM curricula. Those who have already made the transition offer these suggestions for schools just getting started: Dr. Jo Green-Rucker, the DeSoto (Texas) Independent School District's assistant superintendent for curriculum, instruction and high schools says students, teachers, parents and administrators are comfortable with traditional schools, and it's hard to get them to embrace something entirely new.

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Article with great links and resources

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"I get it! The Titanic sank because too much water got inside! A boat can only hold so much water!" That was the moment it all clicked-the "eureka" moment, if you will-at my library's " Sink or Float: Titanic Edition " school-age STEAM program. The children in attendance now had the concept knowledge to allow them to build and test their own boats, and all it took was a tub of water, an ice cube tray, and a goal toward exploring science concepts in a hands-on way. They were prepared to move to the work tables piled with straws, yarn, twist ties, Popsicle sticks, and clay to try their hands at building unsinkable ships. Ta da! An engaging and sneakily educational STEAM program.

What's "STEAM?" It's an acronym for "science, technology, engineering, arts, and math," part of a new trend toward injecting creativity into STEM learning. STEM proficiency among students has been a goal among educators for the better part of a decade, propelled by a series of reports in the mid-'80s showing that many American children weren't mastering these areas. The reports spurred federal funding and initiatives in many school districts to bolster STEM learning.

While government agencies and schools were busy promoting STEM, some educators believed that something was missing. For American children to grow up to innovate in STEM fields, they needed not only academic proficiency, but a healthy dose of creativity and ingenuity as well. Thus STEAM was born.

Does STEAM really belong in a library?

STEAM has great potential for school and public libraries because it taps into children's natural interests while also facilitating informal learning. In a school library setting, that translates to enriching activities that might otherwise become too rigidly restrained to a single discipline. A child might love learning about controlled explosions in chemistry class. But she has to wait, perhaps as long as a few years, until the appropriate unit in social studies to learn about bombs in wartime-and then loop back to her technical understanding of explosive materials. Not so with STEAM in which the science, design, and history of an invention are all combined-just as they are in actuality. Suddenly those explosions, as cool as they are on a purely scientific level, aren't so one-dimensional.

In a public library, STEAM means creating opportunities for children to explore and experiment. A program on a well-loved chapter book is great, and topics such as railroads and bridges are reliably popular among young patrons. But what about a program demonstrating that bridges aren't just the roadway extensions we take for granted? What if that program covered different types of bridges, along with video footage of a bridge collapsing, and a hands-on opportunity for kids to build bridges from dried pasta and then test their strength? Suddenly kids are deeply engaged-and curious. They genuinely don't know what will happen to the materials in front of them, but they want to find out. They leave the program with more knowledge and interest than they might have had if they'd just read about bridges. That's the power of STEAM: To bring together all the facets of the things we find interesting in the world in a way that's tactile and packs educational punch.

Top 10 Go-to
Resources for STEAM Programming

Titles by Gail Gibbons, including The Vegetables We Eat (Holiday House, 2007), a great summertime read for a gardening or plant science program. Gibbons's books are wonderful for sharing as much detail in a program as you want, and her illustrations are rich with information, too.

I like Steve Jenkins's books, especially The Beetle Book (Houghton Mifflin, 2012) and Bones (Scholastic, 2010), to show a variety of images on a STEAM topic. Jenkins's illustrations are beautiful and whimsical, and they pair well with photographic nonfiction books.

I enjoy sharing titles by Anne Rockwell with school-age children, especially What's So Bad About Gasoline? Fossil Fuels and What They Do (Collins, 2009). Rockwell does a good job of engaging her audience with the STEAM concepts they experience in their own lives.

I rely on Janice VanCleave's "Play & Find Out" series and "Easy Activities" series (Wiley) to find simple, engaging experiments for my preschool and school-age STEAM programs. VanCleave has kid-friendly ideas on pretty much every science topic.

Fizz, Bubble & Flash! (2003) and other titles from the "Williamson Kids Can! " and "Williamson Little Hands" seriesare great resources for hands-on activities across the STEAM spectrum. I especially look to these resources for ideas that connect to the arts part of STEAM.

Online

Full of STEAM program ideas for kids of all ages, this wiki features contributions from students in an Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) online course as well as librarians eager to share program plans.

This blog from the Madison (WI) Public Library staff shares a variety of program examples. My favorites are in the WonderWorks category.

A great resource for fun ways to explore and enjoy math in everyday library activities. Check out their monthly calendars, which are ready to print.
Steve Spangler Science
This site offers myriad experiments in the Lab section. Experiments are grouped by broad science concepts, from "All About Air" to "Weather."

Here you'll find hundreds of experiment and activity how-tos, with feedback from kids and teachers who've tried them.

What does STEAM look like?

STEAM programming can be as simple or complex, low-tech or high-tech, or cheap or lavishly funded as you like. Maybe you want to test the STEAM waters by setting out science exploration stations. Think of an ant farm, a tray of rocks with a magnifying glass, models of rockets or molecules, or a seed whose growth can be tracked on subsequent library visits. Perhaps you could start by modifying an existing library program. Take preschool storytime, for example. To add STEAM to this activity, you can a) talk about the natural world and scientific principles found in fiction picture books; b) share some engaging nonfiction picture books, such as Anne Rockwell's Becoming Butterflies (Walker, 2002); and/or c) change that cut-and-paste ladybug craft time to an activity that explores real insects, alive or preserved, using a magnifying glass. All three options will help preschoolers develop basic knowledge about how the world works. That's science literacy, which children will need to succeed in STEM subjects once they get to school.

STEAM programming can also mean creating new programs, be they stand-alone or in a series. At my branch library, I offer preschool and school-age science programs on alternating months.

For preschool science, I use a read-talk-explore format to focus on a single scientific concept. In a program on the human body, for example, we might read Tedd Arnold's Parts (Dial, 1997) and then talk about how different body parts work together to do their specific tasks. Then we would allow some time to explore hands-on body science, using kids themselves as the scientific subjects, to reinforce what we've learned. Activities include listening to a heartbeat at rest, and again after 10 jumping jacks; seeing how lungs work by breathing into and out of a paper bag; and simulating digestion by smashing different foods in a plastic-bag "stomach," noting the state of the contents before and after.

I've replicated this read-talk-explore format for several preschool science programs on topics such as color, gravity, and the weather. I see engaged learning in these programs, with active involvement by caregivers.

For school-age programs, I take a slightly more streamlined learn-build-test approach. I advertise the topic ahead of time-airplane science, for instance-and then start the program with a brief discussion of the relevant science. In the case of airplanes, I'll project some slides on the forces acting on planes, Bernoulli's principle, and aerodynamics. Then, after a few minutes of questions and further concept exploration, the children head to tables with materials to build things and put their science knowledge to work.

In one program, kids build paper airplanes; in another, they construct parachutes. They enjoy getting directly involved in the engineering process and applying the understanding they've just learned. I end every school-age science program with time to test our creations-just as every good scientist would do. Children watch with rapt attention as their peers test their inventions and prove the scientific concepts introduced at the start of the program.

I also offer STEAM programs with an extra focus on that "A" for "arts." In these programs, I don't advertise the 'science' component. Unfortunately, girls sometimes shy away from anything overtly connected to science, so I use these alternate "science"-free event titles to attract kids with varying interests.

Call it false advertising, but I always work in the science concepts once kids are engaged in creating stuff. In LEGO Club, we might talk about what makes a structure solid. In a program where kids use recyclables to craft aliens, we might discuss how a creature's body reflects the environment where it lives. These are all very real, important scientific concepts that connect directly to the types of hands-on, crafting events that libraries have been offering for years. Do you craft? Then your programs already have STEAM potential!

It's a common librarians' take on the maker movement: That making is really "crafting" by a shinier name and that's really nothing new to youth services. This thinking relates to STEAM, too-because "making" is also just a fancy term for "engineering." It's not the term that's important, but the practice of hands-on creation. "Making" means using your brain and tools to figure out how to create things. That's very STEAM.

Programs across the country

Discussion of STEAM library programming on the national level got rolling at the 2013 American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference, with several programs and panels devoted to the subject. Since then, libraries of all shapes, sizes, and service populations have created STEAM programs to serve their communities.

On the preschool front, Rachel Fryd, youth services coordinator, and Joel Nichols, branch manager and children's librarian, at the Free Library of Philadelphia, have transformed traditional storytimes with STEAM. They share books, songs, fingerplays, and activities that correspond with themes like balance, observing the Moon, and plant science. Lisa Kropp, youth services coordinator at the Suffolk (NY) Cooperative Library System, is in the process of putting together "Science Buddy" kits that will enable adults or teen volunteers to lead science activities with preschool-age children and their families, including families from low-income backgrounds who qualify for the federal Head Start program. Partnering to bring STEAM learning to these children pairs wonderfully with Head Start's mission to promote school readiness.

For an exemplary school-age STEAM example, look to the Danger Club at the Eastern Lancaster County (PA) Library, led by youth services librarian Heather Smith. Her Danger Club tagline: "Science can be dangerous; or at least really, really messy!" What kid wouldn't love that? The Danger Club has explored STEAM concepts by making bubbles, slime, water rockets, and batteries that gave a small but invigorating shock. Talk about sparking a child's interest.

The Chicago Public Library offers a wonderful example of STEAM programming with teens as well as partnering to fund programs. Two branches of CPL house themed science kits that contain activities and challenges designed by Northwestern University's FUSE project (fusestudio.net), focusing on hands-on projects involving technology and design. CPL purchased supplies for the kits, and FUSE reps trained CPL staff to use the contents with teens. These patrons drop in at the libraries and use the kits to explore topics like robotics, biotechnology, and app design. Partnering with an organization like FUSE has helped CPL make STEAM learning available to teens using their existing library staff, who need not be subject experts.

A few tips

First and foremost, don't feel like you need tons of activities to illustrate a single concept. For preschoolers, three or four hands-on experiments are about all they can handle. For school-age kids and teens, one activity is usually enough. Kids can spend a long time engaged in a hands-on constructive task, and they need time to explore and think to really get into a creative, innovative mindset.

To cement the learning of STEAM concepts, have library materials on the day's topic ready for checkout. Printing out ideas for take-home activities or charts for tracking at-home experiments are great options, too.

"Make-it, take-it" stations allow kids to take home the supplies for a simple self-contained experiment. Many families don't realize that they can do STEAM activities at home, but they're excited to do so when they have some guidance.

Finally, recognize that you don't need a science background in order to do STEAM programming. My secondary education didn't predispose me to engage with STEAM in my library. Like many a librarian, I was an English major in college. But I remember being curious about the world as a kid, as is any child. For me, that meant joining the Science Olympiad team, an extracurricular science competition club, and even attending a physics camp one summer.

The way the world works was fascinating to me, and I recognize that holds true for many of the kids I serve, too. I offer STEAM programs not because I'm any sort of subject area expert-I look to great resources for my ideas and planning (see STEAM resources sidebar). I offer STEAM programs because children of all ages are curious about how things work, and at the library, I can help their curiosity transform into keen interest and, potentially, lifelong engagement and the innovation that keeps us all moving forward.
Amy Koester is the children's librarian at the Corporate Parkway Branch of the St. Charles (MO) City-County Library District. Her blog: 'The Show Me Librarian'

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Full STEAM Ahead: Injecting Art and Creativity into STEM

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"I get it! The Titanic sank because too much water got inside! A boat can only hold so much water!" That was the moment it all clicked-the "eureka" moment, if you will-at my library's " Sink or Float: Titanic Edition " school-age STEAM program.

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Article on how to support STEM with Arts

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I remember a few years ago when I first began hearing about STEM initiatives around the country, the effort to bring more Science, Technology, Engineering and Math into the curriculum of schools across the country. The initiative makes sense, for one, because annual surveys of America's top CEOs and leaders have indicated that the American work force is not adequately trained in these areas. So, yes, we should invest resources into STEM. However, one other thing that these same leaders have been saying is that they want to see more creative workers, as well.

About 5 minutes after I heard the term "STEM" for the first time, I heard arts educators and advocates saying, "STEAM," which is STEM content taught through an integration of the arts. The two terms have been in a little bit of competition for attention since, unfortunately. For arts integration advocates, STEAM makes perfect sense. Teach the content of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math through the arts. Visual arts like sculpture and painting depend on the elements of STEM for their success. Architecture wouldn't be an art form without engineering because all the buildings would have fallen down. Here's an article from the Huffington Post advocating STEAM: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-m-eger/the-common-core-as-a-path_b_5193594.html

One of my teaching positions is in the Towson University Arts Integration Institute, which issues a post-baccalaureate certificate in arts integration. As the final class of their certificate program, teacher-students undertake an action research project in their classrooms. I spoke with one of the teachers, Dana Link, an elementary school art teacher in Maryland's Baltimore County, who has been working on integrating art and environmental science in her classroom.

Dana worked with elementary age students to study the life of the endangered Maryland checkerspot butterfly through art. Here is part of our conversation:

What do you think are the 1 or 2 (or 3) things that school leadership needs to do in order to bring STEAM into the building?

Provide Time for Teachers to Collaborate: Any type of integration requires planning time in order to be effective. Please give teachers as much time as you can to collaborate so your STEAM efforts can be successful.

Provide Adequate Training: Teachers will shy away from integration if they cannot visualize how it works or do not feel confident in its implementation. Many opportunities are out there to have your faculty learn about STEAM. Teachers need the tools.

Embrace Cooperative Learning: The new STEM standards require cooperative learning methods. The entire school body has to understand that working together is required. Leadership needs set the expectation that each person has to have ownership in this process. The good news with STEAM is there are many opportunities for faculty to feel like they are contributing in a relevant way.

What advice would you give to teachers who want to bring STEAM into their schools?

Find Others with Your Passion: Change is very difficult for teachers because we already have so much on our plates. If you are going to start this process, however, you need willing participants. Begin looking for others who have the same excitement you do for STEAM education.

Learn as much as you can about STEM standards and Arts Integration: Read the research, attend a conference or workshop, talk to experts, and begin practicing. The more you know, the better you will be able to advocate for STEAM at your school.

Don't be afraid of what you don't know: STEAM education means that people learn to use resources to solve problems. You are not expected to be an expert in all of the topics that might be covered as you integrate.

ADVOCATE: share your experiences with others, choose an interesting and relevant topic for a STEAM project, get the community involved, support others in their STEAM efforts, and feel free to show off when you notice that your students are fully engaged in learning.

Is there STEAM in your school building? Is Dana's advice helpful to you?

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7 Ways to Turn STEM into STEAM | Edutopia

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I remember a few years ago when I first began hearing about STEM initiatives around the country, the effort to bring more Science, Technology, Engineering and Math into the curriculum of schools across the country. The initiative makes sense, for one, because annual surveys of America's top CEOs and leaders have indicated that the American work force is not adequately trained in these areas.

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Lessons for Purchase- But great ideas! Quick Google Search

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On April 10, 2018, Felicia Mayfield ( TpT Seller) said: This pack includes lots of options for STEM and STEAM for both older and younger students. We are using it for enrichment in a migrant STEAM SATURDAYS Program. Total: 4.0. Clarity. 4.0. Creativity. 4.0. Thoroughness. 4.0. Practicality. 4.0. Accuracy. 4.0.

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Edutopia Toolkit Ideas

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Whether you are looking for resources on integrating science, technology, engineering, and math or on infusing the arts to transform STEM into STEAM, these curated compilations will help you plan different approaches to integrated studies.

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Whether you are looking for resources on integrating science, technology, engineering, and math or on infusing the arts to transform STEM into STEAM, these curated compilations will help you plan different approaches to integrated studies.