Quick Picks: STEAM Resources

From infusing art practices and design principles into science lessons to integrated learning with STEM and arts, explore this quick list of classroom ready resources to engage students in STEAM learning.  Learn more about STEAM.

1. Makers  Use the resources in this curated collection, categorized into design, how to (DIY), arts and crafts, robotics, and engineering subtopics, in conjunction with hands-on activities.

2. Invisible Forces: Ned Kahn  The laws of nature that dictate the invisible forces in our everyday lives can be predicted and manipulated. In this video segment from Spark, students meet a scientist and artist who uses wind, water and gravity to create art showing forces of nature.

3. Kirsten Lepore: Stop-Motion Animation  Kirsten Lepore is an artist and filmmaker who works with different animation techniques, including stop-motion animation and claymation. With these videos, students learn more about the intentions behind her food-focused film, the unusual materials she works with to create her projects, and why she loves the laborious process of stop-motion animation. Lepore also demonstrates the basics of shooting a stop-motion animation film.

4.  Your Photos on Quest: Simon Christen Photographer Simon Christen shares his passion for observing the environment through the process of time-lapse photography in this QUEST video from KQED. Christen regularly hikes to the tops of hills and mountains in the Bay Area to get the best vantage points on the rising moon or the incoming fog.

5. SciGirls  SciGirls has the bold goal of changing how millions of girls think about science, technology, engineering and math. Each of these half-hour episode highlights the processes of science and engineering, following a different group of middle school girls who design, with the help of scientist mentors, their own inquiry-based investigations on a variety of topics. They also learn how rewarding and fun it is to work with their peers, and the shows’ female mentors offer girls a glimpse of exciting STEM career possibilities.

6. Spark: Art and the Environment Collection  This curated collection focuses on artists whose environmental concerns are apparent in their work. Integrate the arts into eco-literacy, and discover different ways that artists address environmental issues through their art practice.

7. Nova: Making Stuff   Get a behind-the-scenes look at scientific innovations ushering in a new generation of materials that are different than anything we’ve ever seen. The media resources in this collection enable students to get an inside look at the field of materials science and encourage a better understanding of the scientific innovations that are developing materials that will shape our future.

8. STEM Career Labs: Designing Your Future Through this collection of videos, students will learn from STEM professionals about their educational pathway, what it is they love about their jobs, and how they really do use that math and science they learned in high school.

9. Liz Hickock: Multi-Media Art  Hickok is a multi-media artist who works in video, painting, and installation. In her “San Francisco in Jell-O” sculpture series, she has crafted jiggling and jewel-colored landscapes out of one of America’s favorite desserts.

10. Daniel McCormick: Visual Arts (Sculpture) In this short video follow environmental artist Daniel McCormick as he creates temporary sculptures in the creek beds of West Marin. Learn how these organic sculptures help improve streams that are affected by agricultural runoff. “My approach to creating ecological art relies on the interplay of restoration science and the creative process.”
— Daniel McCormick