The Gertrude Stein Repertory Theatre (doing business as the Learning World Institute), in collaboration with informal science education venues, universities, and corporations in Chicago, San Diego, and Washington, D.C., is organizing a set of three professional conferences and a web site to encourage stronger national and local communities of practice around the application of arts-based learning (ABL) to informal science education. Arts-based learning is the instrumental use of artistic skills, processes, and experiences to foster learning in non-artistic disciplines. The goal is to apply ABL to informal science education in ways that can foster the acquisition of STEM skills that are important in today's workforce.
The set of conferences, with a total attendance of 750, will focus on an understanding of current and potential ABL applications to workforce skill development, opportunities to practice ABL directly, and creation of a research agenda on the impact of ABL on science education. The web site (funded through other sources) will help conference attendees prepare for the workshops, provide opportunities for networking, aggregate resources, and host the research agenda.
The three Art of Science Learning Conferences (Washington DC at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History; Chicago at the Illinois Institute of Technology; San Diego at CALIT2/University of California at San Diego) brought together a diverse group of 450 leaders, teachers, policymakers and researchers from science, engineering, business, education and the arts; all involved with and eager to explore new ways of engaging the arts to strengthen science education and spark creativity in the 21st-Century American workforce. The conference format, its focus on building an interdisciplinary community of practice, and its infusion of hands-on arts-based experiential learning clearly helped participants better understand how the arts can contribute to STEM learning. Comparisons between pre- and post-conference data show that participants consolidated their thinking about the integration of arts and STEM learning; they were less likely after the conference to approach the topic from the point of view of one particular discipline (e.g., arts or science) and more likely to think holistically about it (e.g., STEAM) and to articulate shared processes between the two disciplines. In addition, participants’ post-conference elaborations of their thinking were richer, and more detailed. During the post-conference period of the project, live and virtual convenings further enlarged and strengthened the community, fostering the sharing of information and resources, and serving as catalyst to important local, regional and national collaborative initiatives. These activities have served to inspire and equip ISE professionals with new strategies to advance scientific literacy and new tools to strengthen STEM skills in the 21st-Century American workforce through arts-based learning; stimulated fresh research into the impact of arts-based learning on scientific literacy, STEM education, innovation processes and workforce engagement; and led to the development of new art/science collaborations. On the national level, this project led directly to a second and substantially larger phase of the Art of Science Learning initiative, funded by NSF grant #1224111 entitled "Integrating Informal STEM and Arts-Based Learning to Foster Innovation." This grant funds arts-based incubators for innovation in STEM learning in San Diego, Chicago, and Worcester, Mass.; a new arts-based STEM curriculum; experimental research to measure the impact of arts-based learning on creativity, collaboration, and innovation; and public programs that advance civic engagement with STEM. The incubators will bring together 30 cross-disciplinary innovation teams of STEM professionals, artists, educators, business leaders and students. The teams will learn arts-based techniques for generating, transforming, prototyping and communicating creative ideas and apply them to STEM-related civic innovation challenges. Participants will also collaborate on the development of new educational projects that integrate arts-based approaches into STEM learning. Innovation festivals, art/science innovation symposia, prototype demonstrations and a culminating interactive exhibition will reach national audiences with compelling stories about the civic impact of innovation at the intersection of art, science and learning. On the local/regional level, ?the project had a profound and lasting impact on the San Diego community. In the immediate aftermath of the 2011 Art of Science Learning conference there, several groups formed and sustained a significant level of activity for the next year. All were geared toward bringing art and science together; one was focused primarily on workforce development purposes; another had more educational goals. Primary centers were UCSD in La Jolla (site of the conference) and Balboa Park in San Diego. Without concrete goals or galvanizing events/projects, the groups weren’t ultimately self-sustaining; however, they ultimately merged into other groups and projects, injecting fresh energy, new perspectives, and a specific art/science/learning focus. One example is a group previously known as "The STEAM Manifesto" that had become dormant. After the conference, the group was re-energized and re-branded as "Full STE[+A]M Ahead." In this new iteration, there are quarterly networking events that showcase different "STEAM" (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) projects and market other related events that may occur between meetings. Many of the people who were at the Art of Science Learning conference continue to participate, but new people have come onboard as well. Another group that was recently formed was the San Diego Innovation Alliance. The co-founders were largely brought together by the Art of Science Learning conference. Growing out of the project, the Art of Science Learning has developed a database of more than 800 members of its community of practice and many educational practice resources, which has been used to share information across the community and made available to (among others) the National Endowment for the Arts Art/Science Initiatives, and the Science, Engineering, Art and Design (SEAD) initiative. Project outcomes have been communicated through articles in Education Weekly and other regional and national publications; the project website; You Tube; other on-line publications; and presentations to such groups as the National Academies of Science; California Science Teachers Conference; National Arts Education Conference; Discovery Park Purdue and the General Electric/Crotonville Arts-Based Learning Summit.
