Why put the "A" in "STEAM" Learning?

Lots of educators and learning communities are talking about STEAM education. You may be asking, why include an arts perspective in STEM learning?

Starfire STEAM programming (STEM+Arts) links the creative arts to science, technology, engineering and math to give students the tools they need to the innovators, educators, leaders, and learners of the 21st century! 

By integrating art with STEM, Starfire gives students the creative spark to harness the capabilities of STEM skills. Our students fuse an in-depth knowledge of STEM with a focus on arts to creatively integrate and apply that knowledge to solve real world problems. 

Starfire teachers share their passion for the creative arts with our students. Art and creativity infuse Starfire’s enrichment classes, Fun with STEAM virtual labs and MathTastic Help sessions.

Starfire STEAM students take thoughtful risks, engage in experiential learning, persist in problem-solving, embrace collaboration, and work through creative processes. Students learn more and they retain more of what they learn. 

Find out more about what STEAM education can do for your child by checking out our current courses or getting in touch with the Starfire support team!

STEAM Challenge - Build a Boat!

Kids can engage in vibrant and plentiful STEAM learning opportunities, even in the tub! Check out this awesome challenge and let the fun flow.

Build a Boat:

Materials

• Aluminum foil square, recommended size: 6” x 6”

• Weights: Pennies, marbles, beans, LEGO figures will work. You just need something consistent

• Water

• Pan, sink, bathtub

Do This!

• Take a single sheet of aluminum foil, 6” x 6” works well, and fold it flat, pressing out all the air.

• Continue folding until you can’t make it any smaller. Will this little square of foil sink or float? Try it!

• You'll find that it sinks!

Now Try This!

• Now unfold the foil and fold it into a boat shape. Add some weight. You can use pennies, marbles, or even toy figures. How many weights can it hold?

• For an added challenge:

  • Race your boats in the tub!

  • See how many boats can you build and test in an hour?

  • Guess the maximum load for your boat - were you close?

Talk About This!

"Can you redesign a foil boat to hold even more weight?"
"What’s the most weight it can hold?"

Engineers and designers use the Design Thinking Process to solve problems. This means that they think about the problem, the end user, design a possible solution, test it, then try again to see if they can improve.

Why This Works!
Why could the same piece of foil not only float, but hold even more weight? Water has a buoyant force that pushes up, while gravity is pushing down. By spreading out the weight of the foil (unfolding it) the water had more area to push up on, decreasing the density of the “boat.”

Don’t feel comfortable going into the concepts of buoyancy or density? That’s okay! Focus more on the engineering design process of empathizing, building, testing, and iterating based on what you’ve discovered.

At Starfire, student learn to solve problems like designers and engineers. They are given a problem and constraints. Then they use their imagination to come up with an answer!

STEAM Challenge - Dinner Table Cube Math

Starfire knows every kid can excel at math! Math that happens within the family, the community, and everyday life supports kids to strengthen their math awareness, understanding and confidence. 

Kids can engage in vibrant and plentiful math learning opportunities, even around the dinner table! Check out the awesome challenge we've shared below!  We suggest enjoying them as a family.

We’re sharing a fun math challenge called “Cube Conversations” to promote math talk around the table from Steve Wyborney, an Oregon based math teacher.

Take a look at these increasingly challenging Cube Conversation images and ask:

• How many cubes?

• How do you know?

• What do you see?

• How else can you see it?

Starfire teachers share fun and collaborative math challenges that let kids know that they can excel in math and have fun! 

Why Learn to Code?

Students building new worlds in Scratch

Starfire believes every child can benefit from learning a programming language!
Starfire coding teachers are trained as computer scientists, R & D researchers, engineers and programmers. What’s more, they are inspired to share their love of coding and professional expertise with their students.

Students who code are more creative and innovative in their approach to framing and solving problems. Students learn mathematical and computational concepts—they problem solve and think mathematically using logic and systematic reasoning. Starfire coding students are exposed to a world of exciting possibilities through their programming skills. Learning coding from Starfire’s expert teachers opens up the creative and professional horizons of our students.

What do Students Do in Class?
Guided by Starfire teachers, students create projects that are personally meaningful and express their ideas through fun, hands-on projects. They will learn to imagine, design, create and share their own websites, projects, games and animated stories.

Speed vs Depth in STEAM Learning

Starfire teachers encourage depth, creativity and fluency in STEAM learning. We know that every student can be a “math person” or “science person” with the right encouragement and support!

Many students incorrectly believe that being good at STEAM learning means being fast. In our classes, we dissociate success from speed.

When we value fast computation over other skills, we discourage deep thinking, risk taking and meaningful progress. Starfire teachers teach students to think deeply, connect methods, reason, and justify their methods.