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FROM THE EDITOR
During the past few years, our focus on the heavens has sharply increased. We’ve made major discoveries involving distant galaxies, exoplanets, the rings of Saturn and Jupiter, all while digging deeper into Mars with the InSight Probe and – the latest – hearing that China may be growing the first plant on the Moon, on the dark side at that. What an exciting time to be alive if you’re a STEM kid! This reminds me so much of my elementary school years, the Apollo space program years, when we looked to the heavens and watched men walk on the moon on live TV. During that time, the government employed 400,000 workers, who, in getting us to the Moon, developed the technology that has served us for the 50 years since Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took that wonderful first walk on the Sea of Tranquility. Faxes, mobile computing, microwaves, freeze-dried drinks, email, advanced satellite feeds – this and so much more evolved out of the space program. When I look over this issue of STEM Today, I see the seeds of our next big space push, a manned mission to Mars. We open with our cover feature on Leland Melvin, who is truly a renaissance man in every sense of the word – former Detroit Lions wide receiver, two-time shuttle astronaut, former NASA Deputy Admin. in charge of education, advisor on the National Geographic Channel’s impressive MARS series, and a long-time STEM advisor to President Obama. He also plays tennis, writes, and plays music … a shining example of what a well-rounded human looks like, bolstered and steeped in STEM. His story is inspiring, to say the least. His passion for STEM, I daresay, is at least as strong as his passion for space. Then we dig in to where the action is – robotics, gaming, and applied learning. When I was a kid, we drew space cities, wrote stories, and imagined ourselves playing with the instruments the astronauts used in space. Today, STEM kids are running robotics with the same assembly and coding core principles some will use to back up our Mars and other outer missions. This is fully evidenced every year in the LEGO Leagues, where kids ages 6-18 from 100 countries compete in project development, teamwork, core values, and sophisticated robotics missions. We also see it in schools like the Logics Academy, where kids work with robotics in an applied learning setup that takes what they learn and puts it right to work. The same goes for the use of educational gaming in classrooms, to bolster attention, focus, and learning. On behalf of our partners at the U.S. Science and Engineering Festival – which will be sponsoring events throughout the country all year – we hope you enjoy this inside look by STEM Today at the skills that will populate tomorrow’s space program. Drop us a line with comments or suggestions.
Robert Yehling Executive Editor
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PUBLISHER/ EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Charles Warner cwarner@goipw.com CREATIVE DIRECTOR Shane Brisson shane@goipw.com
EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Robert Yehling
MANAGING EDITOR
Dylan Rodgers
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Anthony Elio Alex Moersen
SENIOR VIDEO EDITOR
Adam Saldaña
VIDEO EDITOR
Evan Kelley
SENIOR WRITERS
Everin Draper Patricia Miller Mike Washburn
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Ebrahim Adam Craig Blewett Beth Covington Jessica Ware
SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES
Charlie Hernandez Dave Van Niel
Steven Higgins
PROJECT DIRECTOR
ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES
Mike Kelly Nick Milano Ray Baker
OPERATIONS MANAGER
Kelsey Elgie Domier
SALES COORDINATOR
SALES ASSISTANT
CLIENT RELATIONS SPECIALIST
DIGITAL ASSET MANAGER
SENIOR DIRECTOR, DEVELOPMENT
Dave Kester Claire Forbes Christina Salyards Walter “Bud” O’Neill David Marble
Special Thanks: Brian Boothe/Warren Betts Communications Mary Krescanko/Carlsbad (CA) Unified School District Lori Schwartz/The Tech Cat The Conversation
Over fifty years ago on Dec. 21, 1968, Apollo 8 launched from Pad A, Launch Complex 39, Kennedy Space Center at 7:51 a.m. EST. Frank Borman commanded the crew of the Apollo 8 lunar orbit mission. James Lovell served as command module pilot and William Anders was the lunar module pilot. Apollo 8 was the first crewed Saturn V launch. Photo NASA This publication is dedicated to the dreamers, the innovators, the collaborators, and the doers – who can’t be bothered by those saying it can’t be done. Nicholas and Aria,the future is yours!
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contents COVER STORY
14 L eland Melvin’s Newest Mission By Robert Yehling Cover Photo: NASA
8 Quick Bits 12 Partner Corner: USASEF 22 Leagues of Their Own 30 The Robotics Generation 36 The Magic of Asking Questions with Jason Latimer 40 H ow Games Can Hook Students with Short Attention Spans 46 E xpanding STEM to STEAM 48 Thinking Outside the [Box] 50 H ow STEM is Fueling Licking County’s Strong Growth into the Future 52 H ow The X Files Still Inspires Girls and Women in STEM
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The White House’s Five-Year STEM Push In early December, the Trump Administration unveiled its five-year strategic plan for STEM education, setting forth a series of goals “that charts a course for the Nation’s success,” according to a White House statement. The goals are threefold: for every American to master basic STEM concepts, like computational thinking, in order to respond to technological change; to increase access to STEM among historically underserved students; and to encourage students to pursue STEM careers. The goals were developed by dozens of organizations, business leaders, and educators for the Administration. They are designed to guide future federal investment and to strengthen partnerships between schools, business, nonprofit organizations, and others. “It also means engaging learners in work-based learning experiences with local employers, internships, apprenticeships, and research experiences,” states the executive summary of the plan. Another part of the plan is most appealing to the companies constantly looking for STEM students to be tomorrow’s innovators: making STEM more meaningful and inspiring through project-based learning, design thinking, science fairs, robotics clubs, invention challenges, and gaming workshops. The emphasis? Motivating students to identify and solve problems using knowledge from various disciplines.
Photo iStockphoto.com/bboserup
Two other goals of the plan are: • Greater use of digital platforms and devices for teaching and learning – creating more opportunity for individualized education. • Greater influx of STEM-based teachers in Grades K through 12.
The Race to Space – A STEM Student’s Dream The final three months of 2018 were heady times for anyone interested in space. SpaceX sent up 68 satellites – more than any company in history over such a brief time. NASA landed the InSight Mars Lander to receive humanity’s first look beneath the red planet’s surface. China sent a lunar rover to the dark side of the moon. The New Horizons spacecraft not only voyaged far beyond Pluto, but also sent NASA celebrating into the New Year with its well photographed fly-by of Ultima Thule, the 21-mile-long, snowball-shaped object four billion miles from earth. The list continues, but the point is clear: the space race now involves many countries besides Russia and the U.S., an ever-increasing private commercial piece, and a growing focus on making a Mars mission happen. There are 1,800 satellites orbiting Earth, of which 800 are private or commercial, launched by SpaceX, Virgin Orbit, Blue Orbit, ARCA Space Corporation, and other entities. What does this mean? For today’s STEM students, many already proficient in robotics, it likely means a major section of tomorrow’s economy. According to Tom Walkinshaw, CEO of Alba Orbital, which builds small satellites, “NASA’s role is evolving as commercial entities start to take over more of the low Earth orbit domain.” So widespread is the activity that the U.S. finds itself on the cusp of creating an independent commercial space market. To put that into perspective, the 1960s government-fueled space race between the U.S. and former Soviet Union created 400,000 jobs – and technology we either still use today, or that led to many pieces of today’s digital world. Given the global enthusiasm for a Mars mission, space tourism, and private satellites, some experts believe six figures is a fair estimate for the number of space-based jobs that haven’t been created yet, but will be as our STEM students enter the workforce.
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SpaceX Es’hail-2 Mission. Photo courtesy of SpaceX
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Stymied: The Cost of U.S. Policy to International STEM Students One of the greatest influxes of talent behind the United States’ global leadership position on technology and design this decade has come from international STEM students. Young adults from India, China, and many other countries arrive in the U.S. with skills coveted by designers, tech companies, hospitals, digital operations, robotic-driven factories, medical, and other science-based fields. Job opportunities abound for U.S. and international students alike. But what happens when the flow of students slows, or stops? It’s not good, as we’re learning from the current U.S. visa and immigration policies, which have left companies scrambling to find qualified STEM-educated students, even as American students are more ready than ever. Due to the Trump Administration’s tight squeeze on international student visa approvals – the 85,000 per year cap in 2015 has shrunk to 20,000 – the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates there will be one million job openings in computer applications between now and 2024. Sounds like a great window for today’s high school and college students. The problem? The U.S. alone is not graduating enough STEM students versed in this skill set. Now that the President has directed the Department of Education to both focus more intently on STEM education (a good thing) and filling jobs predominately with Americans (not possible in today’s diverse tech culture), corporate America is rising up in protest. In August 2018, chief executives of Apple, JP Morgan Chase & Co., Pepsico, and many others stated that restricting international students and making it harder for high-skilled workers to stay in the U.S. hurts the economy. It remains to be seen how the next few years will play out. But so far, many tech companies are reporting greater difficulty filling high-skilled positions, even with the number of qualified U.S. STEM students growing.
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Photo iStockphoto.com/gorodenkoff
Cybersecurity: A Hot New Growth Industry for Young Women Even though the percentage of girls and young women in STEM-based curricula has increased throughout the decade, job opportunities haven’t necessarily followed suit – or at least jobs that pay equitably to their male counterparts. This obscures the fact that many industries are seeking out young women for roles traditionally left to men. Which brings up cybersecurity. Currently, only 26 percent of women have met or know someone studying cybersecurity in high school or university levels. The number for men? 46 percent, according to a Raytheon study on women’s mentorship. At the 2018 National Collegiate Cybersecurity Defense Competition, only a handful of the 235 teams included women, yet the University of Virginia winning team’s lead student was Mariah Kenny. As more and more students find computer, legal hacking, and cybersecurity courses and seminars, cybsersec companies are seeking out women. Why? Many believe they are inherently most capable of securing our infrastructure, computer systems, and financial institutions from the rampant hacking that will continue to run like a nasty river through our lives.
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A Busy Year for USA Science & Engineering Festival Every two years, the STEM world gathers en masse in Washington, D.C. for the USA Science & Engineering Festival (USASEF), a full week of exhibits, demos, competitions, and unveilings: a science-tech-engineering-math paradise for over 300,000 participants. The next Expo won’t be held until April 25-26, 2020, but that doesn’t mean USASEF is idle this year. Not by a long shot. USASEF is involved with a growing field of programs, all of them vital cogs in the mission to help students enhance their STEM skills and apply them in the fields that they will populate and define in coming years. The programs combine STEM education, outreach, and workforce development. It begins with an extension of the popular X-STEM symposium, an event featuring interactive presentations from STEM visionaries. Held annually in Washington, D.C., X-STEM is now going on the road as well. It begins with X-STEM at Travis Air Force Base in Northern California this February. X-STEM DC, presented by NCR Foundation, will return on March 19, 2019, with over 3,000 students ready to engage with real-life STEM role models. Later in the spring, USASEF will introduce the Clippers SciFest SoCal, which will take place on March 22-23 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The goal of this event is to inspire a new generation of STEM professionals on the West Coast, tapping into the L.A. Clippers’ strong relationships with businesses, schools, community groups, and government stakeholders in this market. It will incorporate all of the components of the signature D.C. event to ensure success. Longstanding USASEF sponsors and exhibitors will join new partners in the event. This February marks the launch of a new program, the Nifty Fifty Program. It will send a wide array of talented professionals into classrooms
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Photo USASEF
in Washington D.C. and surrounding counties in Maryland and Virginia, where they will inspire kids with their stories and personal experiences in their STEM careers. This educational program reaches out to students and teachers throughout the school year. All of these programs, and the activities and relationships formed, serve the individual events and attendees – but also serve as a long ramp-up to the 2020 Expo. With the theme “Vision for STEM,” seeing today’s students as tomorrow’s explorers and innovators, the Expo is set to return on April 25-26, 2020 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. As the nation’s largest STEM education and workforce development event, USASEF proudly continues their decade-long effort to inspire the next generation. Beginning with Sneak Peek Friday on April 24, 2020, USASEF will welcome thousands of K-12 students, parents, teachers, college students, job seekers, and STEM enthusiasts. For sponsors and exhibitors, it is the perfect opportunity to connect directly with the ideal audience. As one USASEF spokesperson said, “We truly believe that if you invest in STEM, you are investing in our future.” ❖
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Leland Melvin’s
Newest Mission
The former NASA astronaut and STEM advisor to President Obama focuses his energies on his greatest passion: prepping today’s students for Mars. By Robert Yehling
Leland Melvin, NASA Associate Administrator for Education and former astronaut, is interviewed by sixth grade students from the Broadcast Media Class at Eliot Hine Middle School on Friday, March 1, 2013 in Washington. The radio club program, Eliot Hine Radio, is broadcast live on the internet. Photo NASA/Carla Cioffi
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A
recurring thought crosses Leland Melvin’s mind sometimes when he looks up at the night sky. As he peers into the stars from his Virginia home, and sees the darkness of space he has twice visited, he recalls the ‘the sky is the limit’ sentiment of his childhood, and wonders how to make it equally magical for students. “Kids might look at the night sky, but then they look down at their devices and tablets – and kind of get stuck there,” he says. “I want to be sure they continue to look up, and get geared into their environment, their universe. I also want them to understand we might have to gear up and look at another body, a planet, an exoplanet. I want them to have this vision.” In a sense, Melvin sounds like thousands of teachers: how do we bring vision into our students’ education? Unlike those teachers, he is coming at it as a NASA astronaut, NASA Head of Education, and, for five years, co-chair of the White House’s Federal Coordination in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (S.T.E.M.) Education Task Force. His job? To come up with a five-year STEM plan for national education and regularly advise then-President Obama. The federal guidelines and standards that inform all STEM teachers today came from Melvin and his team. Melvin is also coming at it as the author of two books (including Chasing Space: An Astronaut’s Story of Grace, Grit and Second Chances), and technical advisor on the National Geographic Channel series MARS, created in 2017 by Apollo 13 director Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. Prior to that, Melvin and seven other astronauts co-starred in NatGeo’s One Strange Rock, sharing experiences of earth from the rare perspective of being a space traveler. Meanwhile, the pieces of humankind’s greatest exploration are falling into place quickly. In late November, NASA’s InSight robotic lander touched down on Mars for the first-ever deep core and underground exploration of the planet. Space X, NASA and, soon, Virgin Galactic, are launching both satellites and early prototype machinery for a Mars mission. Meantime, kids from coast to coast are engrossed in STEM curriculum, robotics and related classes. Throw in that 2019 is the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission that landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon, and Melvin feels the time is now to inject vision, creativity, and purpose into the way we present STEM – with a serving of astronautics included. “When I was a kid, growing up in the late 60s and 70s, going to school was a lot of fun,” he recalled. “Look at what we aspired to in the classroom. We were sending astronauts into earth orbit and to the moon. Even then, we were drawing pictures of flying cars and landing on Mars on our school folders, and the experts were talking matter-of-fact about Mars being the natural extension of walking on the moon. The things everyone is talking about today, we talked about then. Since we didn’t have devices and couldn’t go online to google and look at footage from our telescopes, or deep space vehicles, we had to imagine it. Envision it. So my generation was a generation of dreamers. The difference is, technology is catching up to us now so we can focus on truly sending manned missions to Mars. I’m confident it can happen in my lifetime.” Melvin’s work on MARS, on which he is one of two astronaut advisors (Dr. Mae Jemison being the other), cuts to the areas he’s most passionate about: matching STEM education with real and imagined space duties, enhancing creativity and vision by throwing the all important “A” into STEAM – arts curriculum – and focusing on the day-to-day of not only fulfilling experiments and tasks, but also existing as a tiny family or community. That, Melvin points out, is particularly critical. WINTER 2018/19 | STEM TODAY
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Leland Melvin’s Newest Mission
Former presidential STEM advisor Leland Melvin (second adult from right) high-fives a space enthusiast with fellow members of one of the two Space Shuttle Endeavor missions that he flew. Melvin was in space twice over a two-year period. Photo NASA/Bill Ingalls
“What we need to understand going into this is that the first mission or two may be a one-way trip, with the astronauts colonizing and staying there,” Melvin says. “We do a lot of things in MARS, from blending documentary with liveaction, science with drama, but we also look at the dynamics of the group as they work together, and get used to their newer, much more hostile environment. So while Season 1 was about the novelty of being there, Season 2 focuses on the dynamics of the colonists, along with a major challenge – will it be a private or public operation to mine the resources from beneath the surface? Earth challenges will become Mars challenges at times; we need to show that. Working together is going to be critical, but so is living together.” To that end, Melvin was thrilled to see Howard and Grazer create and cast a female commander for the mission (played by KoreanAmerican actress Jihae). He felt that sent the proper message not only for the global diversity it represents, but also empowering girls and
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young women to focus more on science, tech and potentially astronautic careers. “I love the fact there’s a female Asian commander running things with empathy and love,” Melvin said. “This whole thing about representation matters. Through that commander, more kids can see themselves being the commander of a Mars mission, or being on a Mars mission.
his and other advisors’ direct experiences and threaded some of them into the shows. Consequently, he feels MARS will serve as a catalyst to further focus younger viewers on a space component in their STEM-based careers.
“We’re seeing more and more girls involved with STEM, with STEAM, and looking at the four components of STEM in making their continuing education and career choices. Everything from engineering to robotics, geology to astronautics matters a lot, but so does empowering students to feel like they can get us to Mars – because the actual build-up and manned mission to Mars will happen under their watch, and these kids will be performing jobs that don’t even exist yet.”
“When I was in space, I experienced this shift called the ‘overworld perspective’, which happens to a lot of astronauts when they spend considerable time in orbit, like I did — or who explored a foreign body, like the Apollo astronauts did fifty years ago,” he explained. “I realized that to bring kids fully into the space experience, we needed to match the science and exploration with some form of entertainment – and in MARS, we have it. We have edutainment, where we have experts talk about it, but also this dramatic show that entertains the kids, so they can see what it might be like to live there. There are babies, dogs, fighting, bars… but a lot of the time, they don’t think astronauts working and living in space is really like that.”
Most of all, Melvin lauded the way Howard, Grazer and the rest of the team dove deeply into
Leland Melvin looks a lot more like a retired NFL receiver than one of the world’s greatest
Mayor James Ledford of the City of Palmdale, CA, and NASA’s Assistant Administrator for Education Leland Melvin get a laugh out of a poster depicting the "Up-Goer Five" caricature of a large multi-stage rocket during Melvin's visit to the AERO Institute in Palmdale. The AERO Institute is operated under a partnership between the City of Palmdale, NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, and several universities.
Photo NASA/Tom Tschida
WINTER 2018/19 | STEM TODAY
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Leland Melvin’s Newest Mission
STEM and STEAM influencers who holds five honorary Ph.D.’s plus the doctorate he earned in school. He’s big, powerful, an avid participant in many sports, and a mover and shaker wherever he goes. He finds time in his life for photography, playing piano, reading, music, cycling, tennis, and snowboarding. He undertakes every mission like a player breaking down film, whether an interview or writing a book, and comes out having empowered adults and students alike. It makes sense: he was a star student and athlete in high school, the son of teachers who emphasized developing diverse interests, and deeply inspired by his personal hero, the late tennis great Arthur Ashe. “It was Arthur Ashe, what he had to put up with to become a great tennis player, the issues of race at the time, and how he maintained his focus and his integrity that really inspired me,” Melvin said. “I grew up wanting to be a great tennis player like Arthur, to follow in his footsteps, but life has a funny way of redirecting us. I learned then that when it redirects you, and the redirection feels right and leads to an outcome you’d love to see, that you go in that direction.” His first redirection was onto the football field. Melvin took his nearperfect high school transcript, walked on at the University of Richmond and became a fine wide receiver, good enough to be drafted in the 7th round by the Detroit Lions in 1986. The Lions were good then, and he craved the opportunity to be on the same field as their superstar running back, Barry Sanders. “I felt like I had a chance,” Melvin recalled, “but I injured my leg twice in a short period of time, during camp, and if you’re a 7th round draft choice with a blown-out leg, it’s not going to work out.” Disappointed but armed with vision, determination, and an acute scientific and creative mind, Melvin decided to try something he’d never thought about as a kid: becoming an astronaut. In 1989, NASA hired Melvin to work in nondestructive testing, creating optical fiber sensors for measuring damage in aerospace vehicles. Twenty years later, Melvin flew two shuttle missions on Atlantis in 2008 and 2009 as a payload specialist, logging 565 hours in space – a little over three weeks. Today, the only American astronaut to ever sign a professional sports contract is the proud owner of the NFL Players Association’s “Award for Excellence” for inspiring academic achievement and excellence among current and former players. While Melvin, a masterful storyteller, can spend days engrossed in space station stories, he prefers to focus on what happened after he returned to earth. A long-held desire to educate younger people to the mystery and opportunity of space travel, exploration, and research found its vital missing piece: his three-week experience on the International Space Station. By 2010, he was sitting with President Obama, writing federal STEM guidelines, heading up NASA’s Education program – including Space Camp – and turning his love of science, the arts, exploration and learning into something that helped explode the STEM curriculum. Through it all, he has written books and taken on high-profile projects to emphasize how today’s educational tracks are well-poised to deliver tomorrow’s explorers. “When kids sign up for robotics, or IT, or their STEM classes, and when they play on their mobile devices, they’re doing things that feed right into what we need moving forward on Mars and deep space exploration,” Melvin said. “They have no problem switching to new programs, apps, technologies
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NASA’s Assistant Administrator for Education Leland Melvin tries his hand at controlling a robotics workstation during a tour of AERO Institute’s Space Shuttle teacher workshop area in Palmdale, CA. Photo NASA/Tom Tschida
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Leland Melvin’s Newest Mission Melvin rode on the NASA Glenn Research Center float that depicted the Space Shuttle Discovery. The float won the Janice C. Meyer award for exceptional merit during the parade.
Photo NASA/Chris Lynch
when they come out, and they know how to put things together and problem solve difficult challenges. What they could be a part of is the next chapter in our history as human beings. “What often is forgotten about the Apollo years is that, from 1961 to 1969, we went from a seemingly impossible pipe dream of a young, new President to landing on the Moon. While I doubt we will see a government effort like that again, we did put 400,000 people to work on the space program, and we still use technologies today that were developed for those missions. Since only a very few will get the chance to fly to Mars, I like to focus on the STEM students who are literally going to create the next set of new
technologies, new ways of doing things. And if they bring in the creative piece, the ‘A’ in STEAM, their arts piece – whatever it may be – will give us the story, creative problem-solving, vision, and perspective to help others wrap themselves around future space exploration.” The beat goes on – and so do the accolades. Melvin was chosen as an ICON MANN with Quincy Jones, Forrest Whitaker, Steve Harvey and 24 other men selected for their ability to inspire people of all ages through their vision and commitment to creating positive change throughout the world. He also served on the prestigious International Space Education Board.
Associate Administrator for Education and Astronaut Leland Melvin talks with school children during the “Build the Future” activity where students created their vision of the future in space with LEGO bricks and elements inside a tent that was set up on the launch viewing area at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. on Monday, Nov. 1, 2010. NASA and The LEGO Group signed a Space Act Agreement to spark children's interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Photo NASA/Bill Ingalls
Photo NASA/Bill Ingalls
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“My life turned out a lot differently than I imagined,” Melvin said. “I never thought of being an NFL player, really, but when I was drafted, I definitely thought I had a good chance to make the Lions and have that kind of career. It didn’t work out, but because I had a good education and a pretty good idea that I would work in something that combines science and this vision of a better world, I was open to opportunities – and I ended up at NASA.” So did the hopes of countless thousands of STEM students and teachers who have been touched by Melvin’s work throughout this decade, whether or not they know it. ❖
LEAGUES OF THEIR OWN For more than half a million students from 98 countries, the LEGO Leagues bring robotics, competition, imaginative thinking, teamwork, and students’ futures together in a way that shapes their lives – and empowers the world By Robert Yehling
(This Page) How sweet it is! Competitors celebrate after completing all 20 of their robotics missions on a 3-minute timed task course. (Opposite Page) These Jr. First LEGO League participants check out their solar-energy home model. Did we mention these students are between ages six and nine? Photo Adriana Groisman
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Photos Argenis Apolinario
The theme couldn’t be better or more timely. On this, the 50th anniversary year of the Apollo 11 moon landing, and Mars explorations and missions seemingly on everyone’s mind, robotics teams and students from around the world are blasting into orbit. They’re not literally launching skyward, though that future could be in store for a few of the more than half of a million students involved in the greatest organized scholastic competitions in the world. Instead, they’re participating in the LEGO Leagues, a combination of high-performance robotics, core values, problem-solving, imaginative thinking, and deep research into real challenges with equally real applications. “The LEGO Leagues are a great extension of STEM, but also what happens when we encourage STEM students to work collaboratively, put their minds together, and solve problems as they come up,” said Leland Melvin, former Deputy AdministratorEducation for NASA and a STEM advisor to the Obama Administration. “I’m amazed at some of the projects and solutions these students come up with – and their robotics skills are the skills that will shape their world. These kids come out as expert problem-solvers, which we need more and more of.”
Four distinct age-based leagues make up the LEGO robotics competition ecosystem. Once focused squarely on high school students, the leagues now reach across the breadth of primary and secondary education, first through 12th grades, to prepare kids for futures steeped in the four components of STEM, with collaborative and imaginative thinking skills to boot: • Jr. First LEGO League (Ages 6-9): Teams use LEGO bricks to build a model that moves and develop a Show-Me Poster to illustrate their journey. • First LEGO League (Ages 9-14): Elementary and Middle School students strategize, design, build, program, and test a robot using LEGO MINDSTORMS technology. • First Tech Challenge (Grades 7-12): Teams compete using a team sports model can qualify for over $13.5 million in college scholarships. • First Robotics Competition (Grades 9-12): According to the FRC website, “It’s as close to ‘real-world engineering’ as a student can get, so FRC is for the most advanced robotics teams. Participants can qualify for over $13.5 million in college scholarships.”
The leagues, and scholastic robotics in general, are the brainchild of Dean Kamen. His yeoman work the past twenty years elevated robotics from a closed-bedroom fascination for nerdy school kids into the fastest-growing and most popular class offering on middle and high school campuses nationwide. In 1998, Kamen and LEGO Group owner Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen joined forces for a program that would engage children in playful and meaningful learning while helping them discover the fun in science and technology. Kamen and Kristiansen called their new program First LEGO League, now the name of the middle school competition. Two decades later, the footprint laid by Kamen and Kristiansen can best be measured in numbers – big numbers. Take First LEGO League, the middle school program for 9- to 14year olds. First LEGO League celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2018 with more than 320,000 participants representing 40,000 teams of 11- to 18-year-olds, covering middle and high school grades. They come from 98 nations. From the first tiny competition, the league now fields more than 1,450 sanctioned events worldwide. Moving to high school and college campuses, one sees the even larger measure of Kamen’s brilliant foresight. Today, thousands of high WINTER 2018/19 | STEM TODAY
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LEAGUES OF THEIR OWN
Victory in LEGO Leagues tournaments means two things above all: Months of tireless dedication has paid off; and the students matched their talents with impeccable teamwork. Fittingly, the celebrations are loud and wild — as they should be.
school and college campuses feature thriving robotics programs – and it’s getting harder than ever to get into them, due to popular demand. Stanford, MIT, and more than 100 other colleges and engineering schools now have robotics engineering departments; that number is growing by the month. Furthermore, the 2017 Horizon K-12 Report, a study put out by the New Media Consortium and Consortium for School Networking, identified robotics as a key technology development “that would drive technology planning and decisionmaking in schools in the very near term of one year or less … The building of robotics programs and development of curriculum will prepare students for a future that is increasingly focused on STEM.”
INSIDE THE LEAGUE The first thing that impresses when one watches LEGO League teams is their problemsolving ability. Many adults would find it instructive. From the moment they arrive to practice their missions, refine their programs and robots, or work on their presentation, the students are actively engaged with each other. They spot problems, and immediately roll into
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Photo Argenis Apolinario
a series of possible solutions, working every angle until landing on a fix that serves not only that problem, but the mission and team as well. This is impressive stuff for any workplace setting – it’s what solid work groups do – but to see it among teams of 9- to 14-year olds in the middle school competition? Or high school kids?
• Robot Design, where students explain their design, programs, engineering, and coding while showing their robots and computer programs; and
Take the Our Lady of the Wayside School teams from Texas, which reached January’s state competition (which had not yet taken place as of STEM Today’s deadline). Whereas the 2017-18 competition focused on Hydrodynamics, space exploration is the name of the game this year. “Into Orbit” requires:
If you put it all together, the diverse skill set sounds like it belongs to a career engineer, chemist, or coder rather than young students. It includes applied science, applied technology, robotics engineering and operating skills, computer coding, imaginative and critical thinking, problem-solving, ability to pivot and redirect resources to new solutions, public presentation skills, and teamwork.
•T he buiding and programming of an EV3 robot, using LEGO MINDSTORMS technology, to complete a complex 20-task, 3-minute mission that involves moving forward and back, lifting and assembling, and moving objects; • Core Values, evaluating how a team works together – combining teamwork, learning together, friendly competition, and sharing experiences with others;
•P roject, identifying a physical or social problem faced by humans during longduration space explorations and creating a solution.
Because of the LEGO Leagues’ massive popularity, and the presence of robotics classes on most secondary school campuses – a deployment that took place entirely in this decade – the fleet of astute problem-solvers about to enter our workforce is large, and they are already solving world issues. Given that 2.4 million STEM-centric positions remain unfilled in corporate and scientific America
LEAGUES OF THEIR OWN
Photo Adriana Groisman
today, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this comes as welcome news. When it comes to higher education, the league delivers. League organizers cite a powerful statistic: 88 percent of participants state they are more interested in doing well at school, while another 87 percent focus more intently on getting to graduate school – with a near 100 percent desire to attend a four-year college. Likewise, the Project piece of the competition is where innovation and imaginative thinking really flourish. Though not as flashy and eyecatching as the robotics piece, projects require students to seek out esteemed experts in their fields of study, undertake massive research,
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then invent a solution that must be potentially deployable. The average team might work with six to 12 such experts. It’s no big secret that technology angel investors watch top LEGO League teams carefully, ready to pounce on solutions built by teenagers that will power tomorrow’s world, and invest heavily in both the students and their new creations. Some have actually received angel investment. Then there are the individual schools and teams. One, Our Lady of the Wayside School, advanced three different teams to the Texas state competition: the MechaniCats, winner of the regional Project Award; WildBots, who won the Core Values Award; and Coding Cats, a rookie sixth-grade team. The MechaniCats
made it to their second straight state competition. They did so with three truly creative and separate approaches to the “Into Orbit” theme. The MechaniCats worked to reduce spinal degeneration from long-term space flight by creating a newly designed space brace. The WildBots looked at food sources and invented a plant pillow for plant growth using temperature-controlled Joule heating. The Coding Cats, new to First LEGO League (sixth graders typically stick for all seven years of eligibility, through high school), worked to reduce the amount of garbage in space by using milk casein to package foods and a mixture of sodium alginate and calcium chloride to create packaging.
(Opposite Page) Middle school students from 100 countries in First LEGO League tournaments are not primitive robot builders: they are already robotics and coding experts. This robot’s job? To master a 20-task course of obstacles, repairs, direction changes, picking up items and removing them in three minutes. (This Page) The First LEGO League World Tournament is an international extravaganza with immense talent. Photo Argenis Apolinario
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LEAGUES OF THEIR OWN (From above) Emergency repairs, close collaboration among every team member, and working the 20 tasks on the robotics course — all are key skills to succeeding in the LEGO Leagues.
Photo Adriana Groisman
That’s right – sixth graders. “Our theme this year is based on learning as much as you can about the problems associated with space travel,” said Mike Hoffman, a LEGO League coach and state meet organizer. “The students look at what a long-term space traveler needs, and then their imaginative thinking and problem solving takes over. The solutions they create surprise a lot of people – constantly – but that’s what makes this competition so great: the ingenuity of the Projects, and of course how well they build and operate robots. Even at a young age.” Then there is the commitment. Whether newly formed or experienced, teams start forming at the beginning of the school year – sooner, in some cases. “Our kids had been in robotics before, so they got together in June and spent the summer building prototypes for their robot and figuring out their project,” said Mary Krescanko, advisor to the Valley Middle School team of Carlsbad, CA – the home of LEGOLAND, site of Southern California’s annual regional competition – that reached the world competition in 2018. “They’ve used
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every weekend, every vacation day, and every school or holiday break to get together and create their program. The dedication is really impressive.” That dedication speaks to what Kamen hoped for when he created First in 1998, to try to address the growing disparity between American students’ readiness for a digitized, technological society and students from other parts of the world. Now, the LEGO Leagues serve not only the competitive robotics desires of their hundreds of thousands of participants, but are shaping up as a huge component of tomorrow’s workforce, specializing in the two things our economy will need most: an influx of STEMtrained professionals and the emergence of a generation of highly effective problem solvers. As friends, family, and fellow students cheer their teams in the upcoming state, national, and world events in the next three months, they’ll also be cheering for the lives their kids are about to lead. Society will be cheering as well. ❖
Photo Adriana Groisman
Photo Adriana Groisman
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The Robotics Generation Focus on STEM has fundamentally changed education this decade. Nothing symbolizes or utilizes skill sets, challenges, and future opportunities more than robotics – the highly popular face of STEM By Mike Washburn Step into most modern classrooms today and it won’t take long to realize that school has changed. It has changed so much, it may even illicit some jealousy; that wouldn’t be out of the ordinary. During my time as a Computer Science teacher in Ontario, Canada, a common refrain from parents was, “Man, I wish we had stuff like what you have when I was in school!” or “I wish I could have taken a class like this!” In today’s schools, you will certainly see iPads and laptops. In some you may see students using video games like Just Dance! for Physical Education, or software such as Photoshop to design the yearbook. 3D printers are becoming a common sight in more schools to allow teachers to reinvent the Art and Science classroom. Maker spaces are re-inventing what it means to do hands-on learning. In addition to all of these amazing tools, don’t doubt you may also run into a robot or two. Yes, robots, the mechanical superstars of STEM education. Robotics have risen to the top of a decade-long alignment of STEM in the academic curriculum. It wasn’t always the case, as educators scrambled to create curriculum for a world where job categories are created and dropped faster and faster. A vocal and growing subset of educators believe passionately that coding should be taught in every classroom and even as a core curriculum subject. Some go so far as to push for a time allotment in the classroom that puts it on par with firstlanguage instruction.
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The Robotics Generation
The arguments go a little something like this: We have a responsibility to prepare our students for the future. The future is uncertain in terms of careers our current students will find, but we know a few things based on what we are experiencing now. The number of unfilled jobs in programming and technology-related fields in North America is massive, in the millions, in spite of the low unemployment rate. The need will grow as technology encroaches on fields with which it had little contact previously. Think agriculture. Some current technology-related fields will experience massive growth in our students’ lifetime. Space is a good example of this. New fields of which we’ve never heard will emerge. For those reasons, we need to start students on a path towards programming and technology to compete in a more global economy, where the difference in population alone all but assures that China and India (in particular) will be capable of finding the people they need to fill those roles and define themselves as world leaders in technology-related fields. We need to
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significantly ramp up our programming education so that students find their passions at a younger age, hopefully leading to careers in technology. Enter Robots. Educational robotics, and the coding to operate them, have exploded in popularity as a response to this call to action. Not only do robots fill the core need for programming education, but they have also filled the engagement gap between learning to code, and using that code to do something. Every teacher knows the feeling: it is often incredibly hard to get students fired up about school work. Put a robot in their hands, teach them how to use code to operate it, and that robot becomes one of the most effective learning tools in the classroom today. Between Dash and Dot by Wonder Workshop, mBot and Codey Rocky by Makeblock, and the countless other brands of robots in schools now, students are being exposed early on how coding and robotics may play a role in their future. Throughout North America, many provinces and states integrate
digital literacy, computational thinking, and computer science directly into Math, Science, and even Social Studies lessons. They are using robots to do it in a blended learning environment, says Ramy Ghattas, CEO of Logics Academy, a top provider and trainer of educational robotics. As our world becomes increasingly automated, and as knowing code becomes a more critical workplace skill, many see robots as the path forward.
Learn to Code, Code to Learn Ghattas explained that Logics’ approach to robotics is segmented into two key concepts: Learn to Code, and Code to Learn. Learn to Code involves using a robot, say Dash and Dot, to learn critical coding concepts such as algorithms, variables, conditionals, and functions. Teachers craft fun lessons to keep students engaged; they enjoy not only playing with the robot, but learning the coding concepts as well. New lessons are constantly being added, creating a learning curve to keep students challenged and on the road to a solid
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The Robotics Generation programming foundation, well before many finish elementary school. A well crafted Learn to Code curriculum does not have to be delivered by the Computer Science teacher, either. Academies such as Logics provide instructions, a teacher’s guide, and in-depth professional development, so that any teacher who is interested in delivering programming lessons in their classroom can do it as painlessly as possible. It has never been easier to teach students how to code. Code to Learn focuses on using robotics, computational thinking, and a foundational knowledge of coding (courtesy of the Learn to Code curriculum) to perform tasks and activities, or complete assignments in Math, Science, Art and even Language. Lessons are closely aligned to regional curriculum, be it Common Core in the U.S., or provincial standards in Canada, as well as ISTE standards. By offering standards-aligned lessons using robotics, teachers now actively engage students in subjects once taught by standing in front of a class, speaking to them, while students take notes. This is an increasingly ineffective way to teach modern students, who not only need to feel active in their learning, but also have a sense of agency in the learning outcomes. Educators have found, through Code to Learn, the missing piece of the puzzle to ensure they are setting students up for future career success, while also ensuring they continue to meet appropriate standards.
21st Century Skills What isn’t spoken about as much is the value that learning with robotics brings to what educators call “21st Century Skills”, core competencies such as Teamwork, Collaboration, Creativity, Imagination, Critical Thinking, and Problem Solving. The near future is fraught with complex issues that today’s K-8 students are going to have to resolve. Issues such as the environment, a decline in the supply of oil, massive population growth, and complex geopolitics, are going to require 21st Century Skills. The future also is likely to be filled with countless opportunities to, literally, do things that are out of this world. Many educators believe that the primary achievers of the future are not necessarily going to be amazing at Math, or Physics, or Language (though it wouldn’t hurt). They are going to be highly creative collaborators and problem solvers. The educational technology community has embraced their role in teaching them more than almost any subset of educators.
Photo iStockphoto.com/alvarez
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We certainly live in interesting times. It is often hard to remember that humanity has, in fact, never been more forward thinking, optimistic, and prepared for what is next than now. While our future is full of potential, a bright future is not necessarily assured. Teachers are working harder than ever to prepare students for the unknown. Educators are using amazing tools and curriculum, such as robots with Learn to Code and Code to Learn training, to deliver world-class programming and technology education. 21st Century Skills are being developed to ensure our students are prepared for all the problems they will face. Educational robots, such as Dash and Dot and mBot, are redefining what it means to teach programming and technology in the classroom. Robots may be the best possible way to prepare a child for their future, and teachers and students are embracing it wholeheartedly. ❖
Magic
The
of Asking Questions
By Anthony Elio
Illusionist and STEM enthusiast Jason Latimer discusses how important it is to seek answers in the information age Science and magic are generally seen as opposite sides of the coin. In popular culture, the scientific prowess of a hero like Iron Man is seen as a stark contrast to the mystic powers of Doctor Strange. However, illusionist Jason Latimer has effectively combined the two, creating captivating stage shows that meld the entertainment of magic with the educational aspects of STEM. Founder of the Impossible Science Program, Latimer spreads his interest in science and magic through festivals, interactive experiments, and his work on shows such as Wizard Wars and SciJinks. In this exclusive interview, Latimer details how the Impossible Science Program originated and discusses the power of asking questions.
“ My biggest concern right now is getting kids to see beyond the answers in the age of information.”
STEM Today: When did you realize that the worlds of magic and education can intersect?
I wasn’t really interested in telling what would happen. I’ve never been interested in doing magic tricks that other people do. So I wanted to build new 21st century magic. When I went to build bending light and bending lasers, that sounded like physics, so I studied physics. When I wanted to study shaping water, that sounded like chemistry, so I started studying chemistry. Soon, I started building different
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Photo Mike Colella
Jason Latimer: When I was kid, I was just fascinated by magic. However, I was finding myself staring at a magic book wondering what is possible. Then I soon found myself staring at a science book wondering the same question. Like, how do you know what can and can’t happen? Basically go to the next page and you keep reading and you keep learning. But as I grew up, I started studying science in order to build better magic tricks.
answers. It’s only as good as we are. The reason I point that out is if the internet were around when we collectively thought the earth was flat, you would never be able to search the true shape of earth on any search engine because everyone would’ve uploaded the wrong information.
, Photo Dustin Gould
I decided to leave my stage shows in the casino world and start working with science centers and museums around the country. I started a program in San Diego to inspire kids to want to ask questions by using magic to get the conversation started. Let’s say invisibility, we learned the hard science about how light works and how the biology of the eye works. It literally comes down to the idea that we must inspire wonder. To find that new cure, to find that new technology, we have to get the kids excited about asking new questions. That’s the essence of it. It started with a TEDx Wall Street talk that changed my life. STEM Today: What do you want those involved with the program to walk away with?
, Photo Alfred Lomeli
JL: I want to empower people. I want to inspire and empower people with the ability to ask a question. And to think critically and logically. That’s what science is, a progression of logical questions. And that’s it. I want people to realize that wonder changes the world and they could be wondering about a question no one else has thought of before. So basically we’re empowering people with the ability to do something they were born with. Which is kind of funny, but at the same time, people tend to forget that our education system today, for the most part, stomps out creativity and thinking outside the box. Because it’s too busy shoveling answers.
illusions with different fields of science. Then it eventually grew into the Impossible Science Program. But I think the real “ah ha!” moment was when I was looking in science to try to figure out that maybe there’s something in the science world that hasn’t been applied in the magic world before. STEM Today: How did the Impossible Science Program begin?
JL: It originated with my TEDx Wall Street talk called, “Seeing Beyond the Illusion of Knowledge.” It was pointing out this need to remind people that we need wonder and we need it more now than we’ve ever needed it. Because people are searching questions and moving on as if they have a crystal ball of knowledge in their hands with the internet. People have forgotten we gave the internet its
The easiest way to explain why we’re doing what we’re doing with the museums is, if we know that the right question changes everything, and we know that that’s how we’re going to find our next advancement is getting new questions, then you have to ask yourself, “Why isn’t there an academic platform designed to inspire wonder? Why haven’t we done that? Why haven’t we taught kids how to ask better questions?”
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The Magic of Asking Questions
That’s really where this all started – we need wonder in the age of information and we know wonder changes the world. So the real question is, why are we not teaching it? We get so wrapped up in what we know that we forget that there’s never been a rule book. It’s just what we’ve learned so far. It’s embarrassing for a teacher to come to that term to realize we really don’t know everything. But the reality is the day before Einstein discovered E=mc2, it had to be available. It had to be available the day before he knew about it. That means there’s probably a lot of other stuff out there that we don’t know about. STEM Today: You’ve been talking about the power of asking questions. What exactly do you mean by that? JL: The concept of flight was impossible until someone asked the question about lift. A cure to a disease is impossible until somebody asks the right question that no one thought of before. So it’s this ability to believe in an answer that doesn’t exist yet. We may not know everything. To come to terms with that and to realize that no one actually knows what’s ultimately possible. Even if you track that all the way back, you’re eventually going to realize that there had to be somebody that didn’t have a rule book. There had to be somebody that realized we don’t know the answer. We get so wrapped up in trying to learn all these facts and answers that we forget where those came from. Now it’s happening on a much larger scale and a much faster speed. Where people are uploading things, a computer that doesn’t know how to wonder or doubt is regurgitating those answers back to the next user. The scariest part about it is even if you’re an individual that can spot the website you clicked on is wrong, it’s too late. You’ve already clicked on it. So you already made it that much more popular. STEM Today: Through your different projects, what message do you most want to send to the next generation of innovators? JL: I’m speaking in Berlin for Education First to talk about the influence of technology on society. We’re globally going to start talking about the internet; how it can actually undermine your ability to be creative, because you assume it knows more than you do.
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“ I’m trying to remind people that it’s wonder that changes the world. in awith lab coat to think logically.ability. But at the same” Rightfully so, you can say that itwere has more born And you that
information than you do. But it can’t ask a question. It’s more important that we know the computer can’t ask a question, that it’s only as good as we are. It’s important for a kid to realize that they were born as a questiongenerating machine. It’s very important for me to try to promote wonder on a massive scale and the importance of that thought process to everyone. Science is a way of thinking. So you don’t really have to be
time, you do have to know that you are capable of asking a question that no one’s ever thought of before. My biggest concern right now is getting kids to see beyond the answers in the age of information. But in that process, I’m trying to remind people that it’s wonder that changes the world. And you were born with that ability. ■ This article originally appeared in Innovation & Tech Today, Fall 2018
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How Games Can Hook Students with Short Attention Spans By Craig Blewett and Ebrahim Adam
Modern human beings have a shorter attention span than goldfish: ours is, on average, below eight seconds while the little fish can focus for nine seconds. These decreasing attention levels are driven by people’s constant use of technology. One study found that people’s dependence on digital stimulation has become so high that 67 percent of men and 25 percent of women would prefer to experience an electric shock rather than doing nothing for 15 minutes. Children are no different. They occupy a hyper stimulating world and find it difficult to sit through a 40-minute lesson or focus on a single task. Many schools and universities are now turning to the very technology that can be such a distraction. One of the avenues they are exploring is gamification – integrating games and their principles into learning. Our research has shown that gamification has the potential to boost student learning and motivation.
Photo iStockphoto.com/chuckchee
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The Game is Changing Gaming is a huge industry and is now even more valuable than the movie industry. A recent study found that teens spend an average of nine hours each day on their devices, with nearly four hours spent playing games. But schools have realized that merely putting devices in pupils’ hands won’t magically restore their attention during classes. Children need new teaching methods to accompany these new devices. To this end, some schools are turning to gamification. Gamification normally involves gamelike elements such as leaderboards, levels, and badges. These are underpinned by storylines and delivered using creative and appealing aesthetics. Leaderboards rank participants, while levels typically give the player additional benefits. Badges are symbols of achievement. In a sense, this is how education has always worked. Individual examinations are challenges, passed across a number of years – or levels. Pupils then earn a certificate, or badge. But a qualification is not a gamified experience because it doesn’t adequately fulfill the key principles of a well-designed game: clearly defined goals, a transparent scoring mechanism, frequent feedback, a personal choice of approach and consistent coaching.
Photo iStockphoto.com/chuckchee
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How Games Can Hook Students with Short Attention Spans
Gamification of the Classroom Gamification is slowly proving its classroom mettle. Some research suggests that, if it’s properly applied, gamification can improve attendance, enhance understanding of content, encourage engagement and ultimately improve academic performance. We decided to integrate gamification into an existing fourth-year course at a South African university. Traditionally, the course is delivered to students through social media platforms. This time around, we built in an additional game layer. This created a scenario that saw students pursuing a corporate career and competing for executive positions at a large company. Throughout the course, corporate aesthetics and a corporate style of communication and feedback were adopted. Students were recognized for meeting learning objectives, displaying academic progress, collaborating around activities, and socializing with peers. They were awarded badges and points, which opened up opportunities for real-world benefits: marks, privileges like choosing their own project teams, and even letters of recommendation. They constantly competed to appear in the top 10 leaderboard. Our research found that students were highly motivated by gamification. They worked hard to try and master the content, as well as engage with their peers about it. Since the game was based on rewarding learning outcomes and sharing their knowledge, students found gamification relevant and beneficial to their learning.
Photo iStockphoto.com/chuckchee
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How Games Can Hook Students with Short Attention Spans Crashing the Game There were challenges alongside the benefits. For starters, students had to invest more time in the course than they might ordinarily. To stay ahead of the game, they had to keep up with their peers. Those who simply couldn’t keep up fell out of the game, which made it harder to re-engage them. Some students also gave up because they weren’t receiving rewards frequently enough for their liking. Teachers, too, must invest a lot of time in running the game – never mind the demands of the traditional course. Gamifying a classroom requires a significant investment in time and money. We also found that there was a need to ensure a balance between competition – something gamified courses encourage – and helping develop socially cohesive students. This requires care from the teachers, who must ensure that collaborative tasks and social skills like empathy and mutual respect are rewarded within the game.
Leveling up Despite the challenges, our research suggests that gamification techniques can provide interesting avenues to motivate student learning. There are several free tools available to help teachers implement gamification in the classroom. Kahoot! allows teachers to run gamified quizzes where students participate with their own devices and are placed on a leaderboard that the whole classroom can see. Open badge platforms like Credly allow teachers to issue their students with badges, while platforms like Classcraft allow teachers to use role-play scenarios in their lessons. Gamification could, quite literally, be a game changer in the classroom, if implemented correctly. As a teacher who recently tried gamification for the first time told one of the authors: “The students rush to class even though it is Math. They often tell me it is the highlight of their day.” ❖ Craig Blewett is the Senior Lecturer in Education & Technology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Ebrahim Adam is a lecturer in Information Systems & Technology at the same university. This article is reprinted under the Common License of The Conversation.com, and with the consent of the authors. Photo iStockphoto.com/chuckchee
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Expanding STEM to STEAMTen Reason
to Bring s in the Ar ts
By Beth Covington
Former NASA astronaut Leland Melvin speaks glowingly of STEM education, the passion he’s turned into his calling while serving as a presidential advisor and NASA’s Deputy Administrator for Education earlier this decade. However, he feels a critical letter is missing from the acronym: the “A,” as in Arts.
those who write creatively will find a versatile, always eager world in app and game creation. Lori Schwartz
“I would like all STEM programs to become STEAM programs,” Melvin said. “We’re doing a much better job getting kids ready for the technology, science, and engineering jobs of our century, and jobs that have yet to be created – but what about a deeper sense of balance and purpose, a way of perceiving and viewing the world and people around us, of solving difficult challenges? That’s what the arts give us. It’s really important we make that a priority again.” The “A” in STEAM combines liberal arts, fine arts, music, design-thinking, and language arts. “These are critical components to innovation. The concept isn’t about giving equal or more time to STEM or arts, but incorporating artistic and design-related skills and thinking processes to student-learning in STEM,” noted John Maeda, past president of the Rhode Island School of Design.
2) Design-thinking: Today’s hottest technology was created by two generations whose educations and upbringings thoroughly incorporated the arts. They married creativity, communication, and artistic skills into their design-thinking, and did it collaboratively. Years of art, music, language arts, project-based science, and other courses, mixed with elements of today’s STEM curriculum, made that possible.
Adds Lori Schwartz, CNN technology contributor and host of The Tech Cat podcast on iTunes and VoiceAmerica, “Kids who can write, draw, and see their way in and out of stories, and issues with game, app, or product design, will find companies needing their services everywhere in tomorrow’s economy. They’re already figuring this out.” Using Melvin’s call to action, we offer up ten reasons why an education involving the arts tends to result in more balanced, creative, and imaginative students – which leads to greater innovators, smarter risk-takers, and people who see the sky as the limit and view the world from a wide-angle lens. 1) Great video games and apps: Why not start with something fun? Today’s multi-level video games require multi-level graphics, design, characters, and stories. Creative writing has been banished to the far corner in many schools, yet,
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dancer, or game designer begin but from curiosity? By allowing students to ask any question that arouses their natural curiosity, no matter how seemingly off-topic, we empower them to integrate the answers within their science, tech, engineering, and math studies – thus shaping a design thinker. Asking questions is vital to a child’s learning process. So is allowing them to ask about anything relevant to education or life.
Photo iStockphoto.com/asiseeit
4) STEAM helps attract students into STEM fields: Why would the arts pull people into STEM? Because it inspires creativity and willingness to leap forward, take risks, try something new – all of which the jobs of tomorrow will require. In Education Week, teacher Ruth Catchen noted how the arts are a tried and true method for onboarding learners into STEM subjects. After all, don’t we want our product designers, scientists, engineers, doctors, and tech experts to also be creative and innovative?
Photo iStockphoto.com/die-phalanx
3) Natural curiosity: One of the troubling signs of our times is the compartmentalization and separation of subjects that work best together. A STEAM education injects curiosity in high measure. After all, where does an artist, writer, Photo iStockphoto.com/Vizerskaya
5) Reduces testing in the classroom: Today’s STEM students take more tests in one year than their parents or grandparents took in their entire high school careers. With so much testing and focus on separating subjects, where does that leave time for figuring out how it comes together in career and in life? Schools that have expanded into STEAM curricula have significantly reduced testing by inserting more arts classes and studies that promote collaboration and creative thinking.
science cannot exist,” she writes. “If a biologist discovers a new species in the wild, he must be able to draw it. Even the greatest chemist needs to know how to write a clear, descriptive, informative lab report. An engineer needs to sketch scale diagrams of a bridge or internal combustion engine. Teaching art develops the communication skills necessary to be successful in STEM.” And to present it: Neil de Grasse Tyson and Bill Nye (the Science Guy) are two glowing examples.
STEM subjects, add to the enjoyment today’s students already feel when they’re digging into their projects and not encumbered by testing. The pressure of achieving high grades, competition to get into colleges, and preparing our students to succeed in the world is mitigated through the arts.
Bill Nye
Photo iStockphoto.com/FatCamera
Photo iStockphoto.com/FatCamera
6) Brings back ‘writing across the curriculum’ mentality: Prior to the 2001 passage of the No Child Left Behind Act (updated as the Every Student Succeeds Act, passed by Congress in 2015), most secondary education utilized “writing across the curriculum.” The premise is simple: the student stitches together his or her subject studies through writing, a vital exercise in problem solving, creativity, and design-thinking (the skill most coveted in tech today).
8) Opens STEM students to the secrets of creativity – and deeper humanity: This is expressed beautifully at the Universidad de Simon Bolivar in Venezuela, a STEM-centric university. School founders, concerned that a STEM-only education was too narrowly focused, made mandatory courses in multiple literatures, history and language, writing, and sociology. These make up 20-25 percent of the curriculum.
10) The arts are skill-driven: Tomorrow’s job and product creators will need to possess mad design-thinking prowess and skills that can be utilized in many different ways. That’s the nature of a tech-driven world reinventing itself every few years; to wit, how many of today’s high school seniors knew what an autonomous car even was when they were freshmen? Now, they all know – because they’ll likely be riding in them. The arts require matching, combining and integrating skill sets. So does the world. The robotics explosion across our nation’s schools is a great example of arts and sciences working together. STEM education has already produced the first wave of scientific and creative geniuses – today’s 20-something app developers, design engineers, scientists and project directors, not to mention cloud computing experts. Many are already millionaires. All benefitted from the arts. It is truly a STEAM world today – and getting moreso, regardless of which way the headlines blow. ❖
Photo iStockphoto.com/D-Keine Photo iStockphoto.com/diignat
7) Communication, communication, communication: Naval Postgraduate School intern, high school senior, and sustainable living activist Kaanthi Pandhigunta covers this point succinctly. “Without writing and drawing,
9) Makes learning more enjoyable: This cannot be overstated. A teacher’s greatest and most enduring gift to a student is to instill a lifelong love of learning, an insatiable curiosity for knowledge, wisdom, and achievement. The arts bring out love of learning, and when incorporated with core
Photo iStockphoto.com/SolStock
WINTER 2018/19 | STEM TODAY
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tech zone
OHIO
presented by
Thinking Inside the [Box]
Eric Hanson
Russell Lee
Case Western Reserve University’s Sears think[box] is more than a makerspace – it’s the epicenter of an entire ecosystem of innovation
Case Western Reserve University’s innovation and entrepreneurship center, the Larry Sears and Sally Zlotnick Sears think[box], is a place to bring ideas to life. From a vaccine carrier to a concrete 3D printer, a portable pulse oximeter for field use to plasma fuel injection systems to make airplane engines more fuel efficient – and everything in between – Sears think[box] provides budding innovators with all the tools they need. Sears think[box] occupies all seven floors of the Richey Mixon Building on the university’s campus in Cleveland, Ohio, and follows the innovation process from ideation to incubation, providing visitors free and open access to top-ofthe-line prototyping and fabricating equipment, startup support, legal assistance, incubator space, and simply places to meet, brainstorm, and get to know like-minded people. “We wanted a space where students from the Cleveland Institute of Art would mingle with our engineering and science students, along with law and management students, and community members, because that’s a real-world team,” says Ian Charnas, Sears think[box] director of innovation and technology. As such, the first floor will be a community space to teach innovation processes and house
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outreach programs. The second floor is dedicated to collaboration and idea generation. The third floor is home to collections of high-end prototyping tools such as 3D printers, laser cutters, and printed circuit board routers for embedded electronics. The fourth floor offers access to complete woodworking and metalworking shops including waterjet cutting and welding studios. On the fifth floor, project space is provided for student groups and senior projects, such as the Society of Automotive Engineers’ student design team’s competitive offroad vehicle, and the CWRUbotix team’s NASA mining robot. For projects that harbor commercial potential, the sixth floor houses offices of the law school’s IP Venture Clinic, which provides free, professional advice on intellectual property protection; CWRU LaunchNET, which provides resources for business plan development, fundraising, and other business mentorship; and the university’s Technology Transfer Office, which helps commercialize research breakthroughs. And the seventh floor provides incubator space for burgeoning startups to have office space, support, and mentorship.
Sears think[box] provides support for projects throughout the entire innovation process. Charnas notes that more than 100 ventures have been developed using the resources of think[box] and CWRU LaunchNet. These ventures have spurred dozens of jobs and patent applications, and have successfully raised more than $12 million of external funding for their startups. It’s no wonder the Sears think[box] model has built a reputation for successfully encouraging and cultivating innovation. The innovation center has received enthusiastic support from entities such as the Burton D. Morgan Foundation and the Veale Foundation. And the center’s staff receives near-constant requests for consultation and has already worked with more than 200 institutions to develop their own innovation systems, from top-tier research universities to two-year colleges to high schools and Fortune 500 companies – everywhere from Nevada to Akron, India to New Zealand. “We are trailblazers and many see us as the gold standard on how to set up ecosystems around innovation and entrepreneurship,” says Malcolm Cooke, Sears think[box] executive director. “That’s great feedback to know we have created something really special here.” ■
WHY DID AWS, AEP OHIO, BLECKMANN, FACEBOOK, & SAMUEL STRAPPING INVEST IN LICKING COUNTY? LOCATION. WORKFORCE. INFRASTRUCTURE. To learn more about Licking County’s advantages and how we can simplify your site selection process, contact Nathan Strum at 740.345.9757 ext. 3, or nstrum@growlickingcounty.org
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REGION Located just 25 minutes east of Columbus, Licking County, Ohio is a day’s drive from 60% of the U.S. population and 50% of the Canadian population with access to more than 1 million regional workers.
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How STEM is Fueling Licking County’s Strong Growth into the Future
When you’re a somewhat rural county that needs to hook up to the digital economy, what are the best ways to go about it? Not only has Ohio’s Licking County found an answer in a stronger STEM focus, but it now comprises an ecosystem that is setting the table for generations of growth, innovation, and opportunities. “We’re doing great work in the area of STEM education, working with the schools, colleges, and our businesses to promote greater job opportunities and collaboration,” said Nathan Strum, Executive Director of GROW Licking County. “We’re directly connecting industry leaders with educational partners, growing quite a bit, and now we’ve formed a community from this.” Licking County is a jewel in Central Ohio, located minutes from Columbus. A generation ago, it was a farming county with some manufacturing and services, but now, it’s becoming a mighty cog in Ohio’s decade-long rise as a major tech and digital player. Companies such as Amazon, Covestro, Ariel Corporation, Apeks Supercritical, and The Boeing Company have landed in this haven of infrastructure, workforce, transportation, financial incentives, and pro-business, pro-education, procollaboration environment. Facebook has also jumped in, building a new operations center there. In all, 50 of the Fortune 5000 companies have a presence in Licking County, which is
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commutable for one million regional workers – many of them trained or re-trained for the specialized jobs at hand. “These organizations come in and are very impressed by the workforce and the services we can provide economically,” Strum said. “We had to make a few changes to grow more economically in Licking County, we did, and now we’re dynamic participants, growing fast – and our workers can go home to low mortgage payments and beautiful natural surroundings.” Licking County is working with The Works: Ohio Center for Art, History & Technology and STEM Works East Central Ohio, which has constructed a rich STEM ecosystem involving all 21 public and private primary and secondary schools, four universities, and two technical schools. Not to mention area businesses, beginning with the group’s two dozen corporate partners. Buoyed by events like STEMfest @ The Works, STEM Over Lunch, and Kids Tech University, the program has created an early relationship between students and the area businesses in which they might land their careers. With citizen retention a huge priority in any rural county, Licking County is addressing it with this high emphasis on STEM. At the recent STEMfest @ The Works, presenters included Denison University
Chemistry and Biochemistry, EVO Design, Packaging Corp. of America, Newark City Engineers, Central Ohio Technical College, Boeing, Anomatic Corp., and Owens Corning. Brought together, there’s a rich mixture of academia, municipal services, both smart and old-school manufacturing, IT, and tech. They worked with students in design-based problem solving, with challenges students would likely face as employed scientists and engineers. “We’re working six counties wide, always expanding our ecosystem to involve more students, more businesses, and strengthen our collaboration with schools and the community,” said Meghan Federer, Director of STEM Education at The Works. “STEM learning opportunities are more and more aligned with what our students will be doing in their careers, and we’d like them to have their careers here. By learning what specific STEM skills a career path requires – and hearing it from a company or manufacturer, whether at an event or a field trip and tour – our students can be inspired and strategic at the same time.” With Licking County officials, from Strum on down, emphasizing STEM-driven initiatives for students and younger workers, it’s clear how the future looks in the county: young, vibrant, and strong – and very digital. ■
Innovation starts at Case Western Reserve University
A I -enabled robots. Industrial IoT sensors. Plasma-assisted fuel injectors. We’ve been showcasing student startups like these and many more. It’s all a part of our ecosystem of innovation—at the heart of which is Sears think[box]. The 50,000-squarefoot innovator’s paradise covers every step of an entrepreneur’s journey from top-of-the-line prototyping equipment to business plan and legal support, and even opportunities to pitch their products on the world’s biggest innovation stage. case.edu/entrepreneurship
How The X Files Still Inspires Girls and Women in STEM By Jessica Ware
studies both. My research program presently focuses on termite relationships and how termite speciation patterns were driven by varying diets, dragonfly and damselfly wing and genital evolution, general insect behavior, as well as evolutionary analysis methodology. We have used genetics and next generation sequencing tools to answer questions about how insects radiated over geological time. We examine insects from around the globe to understand how dispersal and climate events have lead to present biogeographical distributions of insects. Currently, my lab has six scientists – five female and one male – working toward graduate degrees in insect evolution. Through my career I have had the opportunity to use my position to recruit and retain women in science. Over the years, I’ve tried to advocate for greater diversity and inclusion at both the university level and in professional academic societies.
Photo FOX
Insects, those creepy, crawly residents of nature’s demi-monde, were not what the girls in my high school class wanted to study at university. I wasn’t sure I wanted to either. But I knew that invertebrates were the only thing that fascinated me about Dr. Lang’s grade 12 biology class.
roommate insisted), I saw someone on screen who was not only unfazed by insects and dissections, she was fascinated by them. Here was someone with the same innate curiosity I had about the natural world, successfully navigating the politics of her scientific career, side-stepping sexism and changing the face of science.
When I arrived at the University of British Columbia, where I enrolled to study marine biology, I settled into dorm life with about 100 other women who had come to UBC to study art and sciences. I had great professors for my introductory science classes, most of whom were gray-haired, white men who spent class time spewing inorganic chemistry formulas to lecture halls packed with more than 100 freshman students. Dorm life revolved around bland meals at the cafeteria, group venting sessions about various classes and coursework, and “must-see TV” in the common room Thursdays and Fridays.
We watched The X-Files with cult-like zeal every Friday, spending commercial breaks talking about what we would do if we were in her situation in a particular episode. We never discussed her being our role model, but it was clear that through her character we were learning about what we all could become.
It was through my dorm sisters that I was introduced to The X-Files, starring a brilliant, pragmatic female scientist, Dr. Dana Scully. For the first time, huddled around the small common room TV in the dark (for ambiance, my
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I completed my Bachelor of Science at UBC, and went on to complete a Ph.D. at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. I received a competitive National Science Foundation fellowship to study at the American Museum of Natural History for my postdoc. Ultimately, I built a research career as a biology professor at Rutgers. I study insects, specifically the evolution of insects over the last 400 million years. My Ph.D. focused on dragonfly evolution, my postdoc on termite evolution, and I have built a lab that
When I first began at my position, I was routinely mistaken for a secretary or the assistant of a male professor. After 10 years, students know that I, too, am what a scientist looks like. Thinking back to those dark evenings watching The X-Files, we never would have imagined a female scientist with a lab full of other women scientists, writing papers and getting grants. Never having seen a woman leading a lab group, I didn’t know it was a possibility until I saw Scully on TV. I can’t say that I’ve ever been in the supernatural situations Dana Scully encountered, but her pragmatic and practical approach to research questions is something that I aim to use in my work and with my graduate students. We have studied exploding insects, termites with jaws strong enough to demolish thick mahogany trees, ancient species surviving in small isolated populations, and dragonflies that migrate around the globe. Not exactly “The X-Files,” but thrilling science nonetheless – and ours is nonfiction. ❖ Jessica Ware is an Associate Professor of Biology at Rutgers University.
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