Read Kate Tigue's column in the September 17, 2015 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin. Kate is a Children's Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library.
The Morrill Memorial Library is proud to announce that our Children’s Department has won a Full STEAM Ahead LSTA (Library Services and Technology Association) Grant from the Mass. Board of Library Commissioners and the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS). This grant will allow us to implement STEAM programming for children at the preschool level. We will also install a new science station in our Children’s Room and well as some other permanent STEAM related areas in the library.
“What is the heck is STEAM”, you ask? These days, we are bombarded with acronyms in everyday life: LOL, BTW, OMG, etc. Technology has abbreviated our speech (or text, if you will!) and we seem to shorten everything for the sake of brevity and, often, at the expense of clarity. If you have a child in school or work in in a library or in education, it’s nearly impossible to keep up with the acronyms that seem to show up daily. In particular, STEM and STEAM educational policies, programming, and lingo keep popping up in the news and in our everyday surroundings.
STEM refers to the subjects of science, technology, engineering and math and the policies and programs that support opportunities for growth in these subject areas. The STEM movement in education dates back to the 1950s but really achieved public prominence in the late 1990s and early Aughts. Most recently, the STEM movement is slowly evolving to include the fields of art and design thus modifies the acronym to STEAM.
Many researchers point to the Soviet launching of Sputnik in 1957 as the catalyst for increasing the importance of science related subjects in American education. The Soviets not only sparked the space race with their success but they also caused American policy makers and economists to analyze why our nation was seemingly lagging behind in the areas of science and math. President Eisenhower was particularly concerned and challenged more Americans to become scientists in a speech given after Sputnik was launched, noting, ““The Soviet Union now has – in the combined category of scientists and engineers – a greater number than the United States. And it is producing graduates in these fields at a much faster rate.”. Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy both increased federal funding for science-related graduate programs and the number of scientists and engineers steadily increased through the 1980s.
In addition, both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations overhauled American education policies by turning the focus from rote memorization of facts to inquiry-based learning at the elementary and secondary levels.. The scientific method began to be taught in schools and curriculum philosophies began to emphasize applicable skills rather than static subject knowledge. This trend continues to the current day. The official acronym “STEM” was first coined in the 1990s by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in an effort to bolster public and governmental support for further integration of those subjects into schools around the country. Many other advocacy and educator groups jumped on the STEM bandwagon and a movement was born! In the early Aughts, the Federal and state governments started to look towards emphasizing STEM subjects at the elementary school level.
Over the past 60 years, our world has become more and more technology driven. More and more jobs are being created in science and math related fields and yet, parents, educators and national leaders are seeing a decline in students choosing careers in these fields. Conversely, other nations are seeing a rise in the number of people entering the STEAM fields. The pressures of a globalized economy are compelling Americans to take a hard look at how we educate and prepare students to enter the workforce in an increasingly competitive labor market. STEAM’s reach has moved beyond organized schooling and is now focused on organizations that deal with early childhood, including the library.
If you’re the parent of a young child, the amount of information out there regarding brain development in early childhood is downright overwhelming. But exposing young children to STEAM related toys or programming is one of the best things we can do to help prepare our kids for the future. Thankfully, kids are natural scientists! They are constantly just trying things out to see what happens and possess tons of curiosity.
There are so many resources on how to introduce STEAM concepts to kids under five and they all seem to involved messiness or some sort of DIY projects. I’ll be honest: I’m not crafty. I’m not a crafty mom or a crafty librarian. I don’t ever want to “do it myself”. Ever. And, like many people, I don’t have tons of money to splash out for fancy toys (that my daughter will never play with) or expensive classes. So how can we encourage our kids to work on basic science and math skills without spending a lot or stressing everyone out? Use what you have. All of us have paper towel rolls, toilet paper rolls, empty Amazon boxes and egg cartons. Most of our kids have some kind of building blocks, sorting toys, crayons, paints and markers. These tools and toys can help kids build sorting and counting skills, teach basic color theory and color mixing and encourage little engineers to build. Another great tip is simply explore outside as much as possible. Kids notice things adults have long since stop seeing and it's a great way to see the world with new eyes. Finally, children often ask us “what” things are but the most important question is “why?”. Have your child explain why things are the way the are or how they think things work. It may not be totally correct but this approach gets them started down the path of STEAM thinking. And of course, check out our website for updates on our upcoming free STEAM programming beginning in the late fall. Full STEAM ahead!
