I am so happy to have the opportunity to present at this year’s NAfME’s conference with my good friend and colleague: Science Educator Jen Wagar. Jen and I will be presenting on a unit that we have now collaborated on for the past two years: STEM to STEAM.
In 2013, Jen took a workshop where the focus was STEAM. She came back from the workshop and presented her findings to the teaching faculty at Far Hills Country Day School. After listening to her speak about STEAM with the focus on creativity in real-world problems, I was inspired. We sat down and discussed a music and science unit where we could collaborate and our direction would be in terms of creativity while keeping our subjects’ standards intact. Though we had to problem-solve through numerous issues that arose during the unit, we feel that we have created a successful unit where the students are experiencing, learning, and using engineering skills, design skills, composition skills, reading music skills, performance skills, and so much more. If you are attending the NAfME conference, please come and see our session at 3:30 on Sunday. We hope to see you there!
A handout can be found on my website: http://www.amymburns.com
