Liz Knowles Ed.D. - Boost Your STEAM Program With Great Literature and Activities

BOOST YOUR STEAM PROGRAM
WITH GREAT LITERATURE
AND ACTIVITIES

Liz Knowles, EdD, and Martha Smith

Copyright 2018 by Liz Knowles, EdD, and Martha Smith

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Knowles, Elizabeth, 1946- author. | Smith, Martha, 1946- author.

Title: Boost your STEAM program with great literature and activities / Liz Knowles, EdD, and Martha Smith.

Description: Santa Barbara, California : Libraries Unlimited, an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018003077 (print) | LCCN 2018014862 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440862519 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440862502 (paperback : acid-free paper)

Subjects: LCSH: ScienceStudy and teachingBibliography. | ScienceJuvenile literatureBibliography. | ArtStudy and teachingBibliography. | ArtJuvenile literatureBibliography. | Picture books for childrenBibliography. | Interdisciplinary approach in educationBibliography. | Project method in teachingBibliography. | Activity programs in educationBibliography.

Classification: LCC Z5818.S3 (ebook) | LCC Z5818.S3 K66 2018 LB1585 (print) |DDC 028.5/34dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018003077

ISBN: 9781440862502 (paperback)

9781440862519 (eBook)

22 21 20 19 18 1 2 3 4 5

This book is also available as an eBook.

Libraries Unlimited

An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC

ABC-CLIO, LLC

130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911

Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911

www.abc-clio.com

This book is printed on acid-free paper

Manufactured in the United States of America

As educators, our attention has recently been focused on an approach to teaching and developing curriculum that endorses the old-time concept of interdisciplinary curriculum development and teaching. The most important element is that STEAM includes K-5 students! In order to really embrace the process, collaboration across subject areas is imperative. What better place to start it but in the elementary grades? Collaboration across the middle school grade levels and subject areas was imperative to produce an effective interdisciplinary unit many years ago. Collaboration is required to do an effective job of curriculum mapping and then use the maps to develop cross-curricular themes across grade levels and subject areas. And collaboration is at the core of any successful STEAM program.

The other important thing that has come out of this is the freedom for students to problem-solve without fear of failure. Part of this is to let students know that failure is almost expectedthat they have to try, try, and try again to solve a problem. Students learn that sometimes failure leads in a different direction and to a successful but different result/solution. It is and will be difficult for teachers to let go of precise and detailed step-by-step directions, benchmarks and rubrics, and the acceptance of the one and only correct answer. And the whole concept of makerspace is fascinatinglike the 5th-grade science fair project on steroids and for all ages. It also touches on the entrepreneurial spirit of kidsit is not difficult to find kids who have gone way beyond the lemonade stand!

Educating students to traditional literacy standards is no longer enough. Independent and creative thinking are highly valued if students are to thrive in their academics and eventually their 21st century careers. Students must master a completely different set of skills to succeed in a culture of technology-driven automation, abundance, and access to global labor markets.

This new emphasis on digital literacy also calls attention to skills that have not been focused upon before. These skills include online researchknowing where to look for information and then knowing how to discern if the information is accurate. It also requires access to experts in the field. It necessitates working together with classmates, communicating ideas, listening to, and contemplating and valuing the ideas of others.

In order to keep up with all the information available in educational journals, a very helpful resource is Kim Marshalls Marshall Memo a subscription-based weekly newsletter delivered by email. Kim reads from a huge list of professional journals and publications and summarizes the articles that he thinks are most interesting and pertinent. He provides the link to the full article if you want to read more. This resource is immensely helpful and time saving. http://www.marshallmemo.com/

Another site that is an excellent resource for locating books about STEAM topics and information on STEAM authors is http://www.teachingbooks.net. Nick Glass does a great job of providing valuable materials for teachers and students about books, authors, and illustrators; the fee for access to the site is very reasonable.

In the Educational Leadership (2015) that is all about STEM, Sunday Cummins tells of the importance of Reading about Real Scientists. The article describes informational materials based on the five specific subject areas that are included in STEAM. It is important for students to understand how inventors in the past developed the end results that they achieved; most often it was through trial and error. It is very helpful and affirming to read about scientists who lived long ago and how frustrating it was for them to not quite reach their goal. Sometimes, they invented something that they discovered on a tangent rather than actually solving the original problem. Being able to develop a general problem to solve and then find a set of reference books and materials that will support the knowledge base needed in order to create reasonable solutions is an important part of this entire movement. According to Cummins, an anchor text should serve as a starting point for developing ideas and gathering background information. There are many possibilities for using books and journals, magazines, videos, and original documents in order to support and add to possible solutions. We have created a resource that identifies a huge number of these anchor texts (Cummins, Sunday. Reading about Real Scientists. Educational Leadership 72:4 [20142015]: 6872).

In reviewing the research for this book, I provided the highlights of the articles and a few books so that readers could get the essence of the information regarding the STEM/STEAM movement and then decide if they wanted to locate the information to read in more detail. This was done because I know teachers do not have time to do research and read multiple journals. No thoughts in those review/summary paragraphs are mine. I have quoted or paraphrased the essence so that it would read exactly or very close. Sofor each article or bookthe bibliographical information is included to facilitate the location of the complete work, if desired.

Martha Smith and I put together this book that features some information from our previous titles and, most important, extensive nonfiction bibliographies for each of the five STEAM topics. We feel that this will serve as a much-needed resource for teachers, parents, and librarians who are introducing and building a STEAM program for students.