What does it mean …STEAM? for a decade, I have been attending conferences and visiting schools, many with inspirational stories and videos about integrating STEM and the Arts. I am proud of my work with the Innovative Collaborative, a think tank in the US who is taking stock and advocating for A in STEAM. While there are many fantastic examples in the k-8 sector, I have only seen one example in the high schools.

Typically, the Arts are often an way to make the work pretty or just a last minute add-on. We are not leveraging the resilience, critical thinking and creativity that many of the arts processes can offer STEM. Too often in STEM classes, we are looking for the one right answer to a lab or word problems or projects, which does not reflect the daily activity of STEM professionals on the cutting edge. The art needs to inform the science and the science needs to influence the art.

The inaugural year of the LEO Project (alpha LEONIS) happened during Pandemic learning is a high school example of a transdisciplinary project where science students had an artistic experience. with great success. The mentorship and relationship with the Living Architecture Systems Group, Brilliant Labs, The Riverview Arts Center, the ArtsSmart, Riverview High School and Anglophone East School District is a wonderful example of the community working with students.

We have two publications.

The first one is the Brilliant Labs Newsletter

The second one is a progress report where the wandering path and the layers are made visible. The University of Waterloo’s Living Architecture Systems Group published this on their web page as one of their many projects around the world.