When I first made plans to attend, I did so as an observer. However, soon after the presentations began on the first morning of the conference, I became an active and engaged participant. Each presentation provided me with a deeper understanding of the innovation gap in our nation today — a gap that threatens our ability to compete on a global stage — and the need to ensure that the arts are a key part of our educational equation moving forward.

The challenge is huge, but I am convinced that each of us can make a difference. Already, two breakout groups that I am aware of have scheduled their first meetings in San Diego to continue to advance the conference agenda.

And I am personally committed to doing the same. In my role as Associate Editor of Leader to Leader magazine, I will invite thought leaders to write articles about how the creative arts can improve worker creativity and innovation. And in my upcoming role teaching a class in creativity and innovation at San Diego State University this fall, I will ensure that the arts play a major role in my syllabus. Finally, I will continue to network and make connections with others — both in and out of the Art of Science Learning community — to continue to move the agenda forward.

And like the star thrower in Loren Eiseley’s story, I’ll continue to try to make a difference. One starfish — and one step — at a time.

However, there’s just one problem: What will I teach?

The good news is that I have an existing syllabus used by the current professor on which to model my own class. And as I reviewed the syllabus, it was no surprise to me that the arts are used to provide examples to students of how creativity and innovation work in the real world, and how they might be applied by entrepreneurs in starting and building their own businesses.

One example is the Harvard case study “Paul Robertson and the Medici String Quartet.” Although I have not yet read this case study, my understanding (gleaned from the executive summary) is that the Medici String Quartet has enjoyed a long and creative collaboration. But it hasn’t always been harmonious. The case study explains what innovative businesses can learn about managing creative people.

The case explores three key points:

– Businesses emphasize technical mastery and the creation of predictable patterns. The Medici String Quartet aimed for more. The goal of each performance was never to render a piece exactly as the composer intended, but to interpret it in fresh and new ways.

– Financial pressures for the quartet could be intense. Among musicians, it’s an old (but good) joke: How do you become a millionaire as a classical musician? Start as a billionaire.

– Businesses enjoy the notion that innovation happens when everyone is happy and satisfied. As the quartet proved, harmony comes in unexpected ways.

At any rate, I am looking forward to myself exploring the different ways that I can introduce the arts to my students as examples of how to increase creativity and innovation in organizations.

What examples would you use to accomplish this goal?

The concept of art and science integration became a laboratory for two institutions located in San
Francisco, located right across the street from each other. Education staff at the California Academy
of Sciences and the de Young Museum, part of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, explored
the connection of art and science through the similarity between common themes, the process of
development, the way information is conveyed, and the ideas portrayed in science and art. After this
rich exploration these two museums took on a new partner, one that had a direct impact on the local
educational community: the San Francisco Unified School District.

Over the last year the San Francisco Unified School District, the California Academy of Sciences and the
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco partnered with teachers throughout the district to develop lessons
and implement a new teaching pedagogy that builds literacy skills through the integration of science and
art.

The main goal of this ongoing program is to increase educator confidence in teaching content and process
skills within science and art. We also want to increase student interest in learning, making school time
more enjoyable and rewarding. If children are doing something interesting and meaningful, they are
more likely to want to write about it; in turn, these students are increasing their proficiency with academic
language. This unique combination of left and right brain activities makes learning accessible to all
students, and we are seeing evidence of this helping to reduce the achievement gap.

Due to the focus on language arts and math after No Child Left Behind, time for science and art in schools
was dramatically reduced in classrooms around the country. Our program gave teachers integration
strategies to teach both art and science simultaneously, increasing teaching time for both.

By applying 21st Century skills to the integration of art and science, teachers, students, and museum
staff have the opportunity to see the amazing connections between these two disciplines. Learners are
expanding their understanding of the skills by using them in this cross-disciplinary approach while
they are engaged through different modes of learning. Learners have more choice on how to access the
concepts, how to communicate their understanding, and are successful in their unique approach to these
ideas. This integrated approach to learning promotes teachers and students to explore the cognitive
processes of artists and scientists.

In order to help prepare our students for future careers, we are creating an integrated approach in
collaboration with teachers that is building a foundation of skills and applying them to the fields of
science and art. Our teacher professional development program, called SLANT (Science, Literacy, and
Art, iNtegration in the Twenty-first century), provides a powerful professional development model that
uses research and reflection to bring creativity back to the classroom and to inspire student-driven inquiry.
In summary, I am excited that the Art of Science Learning conferences allow us the opportunity to hear
others’ stories of success, and I look forward to hearing stories from you about creative projects around
the country.

That cell phone or PDA you’re carrying? It uses a form of encryption called frequency hopping to
ensure your messages can’t easily be intercepted. Frequency hopping was invented by the composer
George Antheil in collaboration with the actress Hedy Lamarr. Yeah, really. The electronic screen
that displays your messages (not to mention the ones on your computer and your TV), they employ
a combination of red, green, and blue dots from which all the different colors can be generated. That
innovation was the collaboration of a series of painter-scientists (e.g., American physicist Ogden Rood
and German Nobel laureate Wilhelm Ostwald) and post-impressionist artists such as Seurat – you know,
the guy who painted his pictures out of dots of color, just like the ones in your electronic devices…. The
first programmable device was invented by J. M. Jacquard to control the looms that made his tapestries
and exactly the same technique was used to program the first computers. He also made the first digital
image – out of black and white threads. In fact, the computer chips that run virtually all our devices
today are made using a combination of three classic artistic inventions: etching, silk screen printing,
and photolithography. Data from NASA and NSA satellites is enhanced using artistic techniques such
as chiaroscuro (a Renaissance invention) and false coloring (the Fauvists) to increase the contrast so
it’s easier to perceive the important information. Artists figured out how to hide information, too.
Camouflage was invented by the American painter Abbot Thayer, who was unable to convince Teddy
Roosevelt to use it in the Spanish American war. By WWI, however, painters such as the Vorticists
in England and the Cubists in France were co-opted by their governments to design prints to protect
troops, equipment, and planes.

In medicine, the stitches that permit a surgeon to correct an aneurysm or carry out a heart transplant were invented by American Nobel laureate Alexis Carrel, who took his knowledge of lace making into the operating room. That pace maker you use: it’s a simple modification of a musical metronome. If you have a neurological deficit, your neurologist may employ dance notation to analyze your problem. The stent that was implanted in your aorta to keep it open, that was designed using the principles of origami.

Oh, and that bridge you drove over on the way to work: good chance its design was invented
by an artist. Princeton engineering professor David Billington and Smithsonian historian Brooke
Hindle have shown that most of the innovations in bridge design have originated with artistically
trained engineers such as John Roebling and Robert Maillart. In fact, there’s a long tradition of artists-
turned-inventors in the US. You probably didn’t know that Samuel Morse (telegraph) and Robert Fulton
(steam ship) were among the most prominent American artists before they turned to inventing (visit
the Smithsonian American Art Galleries some time). You are probably also ignorant of the fact that
Alexander Graham Bell was a pianist whose invention of the telephone began with a simple musical
game. Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes don’t just provide us with unusual architectures, they also inform our understanding of cell and virus structure that permits new biomedical insights. Geodesic
domes led to the invention of a new kind of chemical nanoparticle called “Buckminsterfullerene,” which
is the basis of new medicines. Kenneth Snelson’s tensegrity sculptures (stroll past his “Needle Tower”
outside the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden on the Mall) aren’t just fascinating, they’ve also
created a whole new form of engineering. Biologists have even found that it’s principles explain the
shapes of cells. Google it!

In fact, I’ve just published a study that shows that almost all Nobel laureates in the sciences
are actively engaged in arts as adults. They are twenty-five times as likely as average scientist to sing,
dance, or act; seventeen times as likely to be an artist; twelve times more likely to write poetry and
literature; eight times more likely to do woodworking or some other craft; four times as likely to be a
musician; and twice as likely to be a photographer. Many connect their art with their scientific creativity.

Moreover, those folks who produce the new patentable inventions and found the new
companies to produce them – they, too, are artistically trained: they are far more likely to have
continuous participation in drawing, painting, dancing, woodworking, metal working, and mechanics
than their less innovative peers. Ninety percent of them, in interviews, expressed the opinion that the
arts should be part of every scientists and technologists education. Eighty percent of them could point
to specific ways in which their arts training directly enhanced their innovative ability.

In sum, successful innovators in sciences and technology are artistic people. Stimulate the arts
and you stimulate innovation.

Bob Root-Bernstein, Ph. D.
MacArthur Fellow
Professor of Physiology
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824 USA
rootbern@msu.edu

Root Bernstein, R. S., Bernstein, M. and Garnier, H. W. “Correlations between Avocations,
Scientific Style, and Professional Impact of Thirty Eight Scientists of the Eiduson Study,” Creativity
Research Journal 8: 115 137, 1995.

Root-Bernstein, R. S. “Art Advances Science,” Nature 407: 134, 2000.

Root Bernstein, R. S. “Music, creativity, and scientific thinking,” Leonardo 34, no. 1, 63-68, 2001.

Root-Bernstein, R. S. “Sensual chemistry. Aesthetics as a motivation for research.” Hyle: The
Journal of the Philosophy of Chemistry 9, 35-53, 2003.

Root-Bernstein, R. S. and Root-Bernstein, M. M. “Artistic Scientists and Scientific Artists: The
Link between Polymathy and Creativity” in Sternberg, Robert, Grigorenko, Elana L., and Singer, Jerome,
L., editors, Creativity: From Potential to Realization (Washington, D. C.: American Psychological
Association, 2004), pp. 127-151.

Root-Bernstein, M. M. and Root-Bernstein, R. S. “Body Thinking Beyond Dance: A Tools for
Thinking Approach,” In Overby, Lynette, and Lepczyk, Billie, eds. Dance: Current Selected Research, vol.
5, pp. 173-202, 2005.

Root-Bernstein RS, Lindsay Allen^, Leighanna Beach^, Ragini Bhadula^, Justin Fast^, Chelsea
Hosey^, Benjamin Kremkow^, Jacqueline Lapp^, Kaitlin Lonc^, Kendell Pawelec^, Abigail Podufaly^,
Caitlin Russ^, Laurie Tennant^, Erric Vrtis^ and Stacey Weinlander^. “Arts Foster Success: Comparison
of Nobel Prizewinners, Royal Society, National Academy, and Sigma Xi Members.” J Psychol Sci Tech
2008; 1(2):51-63.

When we say STEM, do we simply mean any of the four subjects or do we mean those areas in which some of the four, ideally all four, overlap? My sense is that most people simply mean Science OR Technology OR Engineering OR Mathematics when referring to STEM, though there are some efforts under way, including some at the National Academies, that mean to explore whether education can benefit, just as research already does, when the four are somehow linked.

Now add the arts and you get STEAM. And since no one in his or her right mind would simply want to add “arts”, believing that it belongs in the same space (for then, why not add history, philosophy etc. and end up including everything and anything), there is a specific theory of action that those who talk about STEAM have in mind when adding arts to science, technology, engineering and math. So, why or how does the A then fit into the STEM to form STEAM?

I see two major claims. The first one refers to art as a different way of perceiving and knowing and dealing with the world, as a means to expand the toolbox of science and engineering. In engineering, which some summarize as design under constraints, art can provide a useful tool to make the engineered world or object more appealing and thus acceptable and useful to people. In science it is seen as a different way of seeing the world, a heuristic that leads to a better, or at least different understanding of the world. One example for this perspective is visualization, which empowers science research just as it does science education (see the Gordon Research Conference on Visualization in Science and Education).

The second claim is based on the limitations of scientific research and of engineering design, which some see as lacking creativity and fun. Art, in this view, is a means to free the scientist’s and engineer’s mind. It should be noted that highly selective STEM specialty schools encourage their students to pursue the arts, be that poetry, music, theatre, or any other aspect of it.

Both claims have some validity, I think, and both show us that art is but one additional component that would benefit STEM. Because, ultimately, wouldn’t we like our future researchers and engineers not only to be creative, but also critical, wondering what their work can and cannot do, and what consequences it may have? The recent earthquake and subsequent tsunami and its horrifying impact on Japan make brutally visible how we are in need of his kind of humility…

One year I used some little-known-at-the-time gibberellic acid to create monster plants far larger than normal. Another year I demonstrated how the earth’s magnetic field had flipped numerous times over the millennia. And yet another year I showed how chlorofluorocarbons from spray cans were destroying the Earth’s atmosphere.

This past week I was reminded that the science fair is alive and well, and it’s still inspiring students across the country to pursue educations in science, technology, engineering, and math. I received this reminder when my youngest son Jack brought home a note from his science teacher announcing that students who attended the Greater San Diego Science and Engineering Fair this upcoming weekend would receive bonus points on their grade. I told Jack that, extra credit or not, we were going.

I personally can’t wait to see how Jack reacts to being immersed in the fair environment, with about 800 students showing off their creations. Like me, he’s already a bit science-y. Maybe Jack will be inspired enough to enter next year’s school science fair. And, who knows, that just might lead to a college major and an eventual career in some technology-related field.

While I can’t see Jack’s future quite yet, I do know that science fairs are a great way to engage students in the joy of technology, and to spur them on to careers that will help fill the current gap between the needs of U.S. technology industries, and the supply of people who are qualified to fill these jobs.

See you at the fair!

Georgia Tech’s Mark Guzdial, in his Computing Education blog, takes exception to this: reasoning, he says is not the same cognitive activity as imagining: “reasoning involves a critical component, a requirement to apply discipline, that imagining does not.”

The legendary Alan Kay responding to the post, short-circuits the one-to-one relationship that Guzdial sees: “Bronowski does not equate the two,” insists Kay. Kay worked with Bronowski in the 1970s and both regard science, says Kay, as not about “facts and dogma” but rather “about imagination supported by both reason and investigation.” Science is different from reasoning and storytelling but depends on both. Science for Kay is essentially about trying to relate what goes on in our head (reasoning and imagination) with what goes on out in the universe. Both need each other for the magic to happen.

To begin, museum staff from the California Academy of Sciences, a museum and research center, and the de Young Museum, a fine arts institution in San Francisco, teamed up with a neighboring fourth grade class to experiment with science, art, and literacy integration over a ten week period. This project was born from California Academy of Sciences and de Young Museum staff interest in 21st century skills and how these skills relate to science, art, and literacy. For example, science and art both require critical thinking skills and the application of these skills through the inquiry process. The goals of the program were to research student understanding of art and science, test an authentic integrated curriculum, and develop a successful integrated model for classroom activities and field trips to both institutions. In the first step of the project, we collected data on student perceptions of science and art to help guide our teaching methods. The students were asked to draw a scientist and an artist and to answer a series of questions related to their illustrations. The data was collected from 23 students in the 4th grade and their ideas were as alarming and as humorous as my childhood memory of the crazy white haired scientist.

Out of the 23 scientist drawings 18 included beakers, test tubes, and chemicals, 10 showed lab coats, and 11 showed goggles. Most of the scientists were working in isolation in a laboratory setting and none were drawn in an outdoor setting. The student drawings represent mostly chemistry which is only of the many fields of science. Over 74% of the students drew the scientist as a man and, when asked why, they all had different answers. Some said they only knew how to draw a man. Others said “I don’t know.” The one answer that struck a chord in me was the student that answered “I drew a man because I have never heard of a woman scientist.” It was quite alarming to think that a young girl in 4th grade had never learned of women in science. In fact, the girls in the class mostly drew men as scientists. In the artist drawings, 42% of the students drew people with berets and 21% actually added moustaches. The students also answered questions such as “Do you want to be a scientist/artist and why?” Examples of common negative answers from students were “Because I’m not that good at science” and “I don’t know if people will like my art.” It was obvious to us that students needed to feel confident in both disciplines in order to pursue them.

After collecting the pre-data, we identified skills necessary in the inquiry process, such as observation, investigation, interpretation, critical thinking, and communication, and developed lessons around utilizing those skills. The use of each skill is important for building awareness of the skills associated with science and art and confidence in these subjects. These lessons used light as the topic of the inquiry. Both the Academy and the de Young museums were used as resources for experimentation about light, and students visited both museums once a week for an eight week period. During these lessons, students participated in inquiry-based activities including color mixing, plant chromatography, light-induced decomposition, and shading. These activities reinforced the inquiry skills across disciplines and had students identifying the skills they were using. As part of these activities, students were introduced to artists and scientists who represented many areas within each discipline. The gender and appearance of the artists and scientists were never addressed and no references were made to the pre-assessment the students did at the beginning of the program.

Student learning was assessed weekly through journal entries. The student journals had sections devoted to vocabulary building, question development, and making observations through sketches and data collection. The journal was also a tool for reflection and analytical thinking. A rubric was designed that assessed student understanding of concepts and whether or not the student demonstrated the use of the skill of the day.

State standards were considered during this interdisciplinary approach to science, art, and literacy and most of our curriculum met the art and science investigation and experimentation standards. Literacy standards around concept development and comprehension were covered during explorations of photosynthesis, decomposition, artistic perception, and creative expression. Although addressing the standards was not a main goal of the project, the assessments and later state testing of the students showed a marked increase in test scores in science and language arts.

State standards were considered during this interdisciplinary approach to science, art, and literacy and most of our curriculum met the art and science investigation and experimentation standards. Literacy standards around concept development and comprehension were covered during explorations of photosynthesis, decomposition, artistic perception, and creative expression. Although addressing the standards was not a main goal of the project, the assessments and later state testing of the students showed a marked increase in test scores in science and language arts.

This experience began with student assessments. By assessing students’ perceptions of art and science we were aware of where the students were starting from, and thus what we had to do to get them to where we wanted them to be. The key areas of focus were the students’ lack of identity with science or art and their lack of confidence with these subjects. With this information we created an integrated approach making multiple entry points to the skills and subject matter. This was necessary for inquiry based learning that incorporated different learning styles to engage all students. After the experience of the science, art, and literacy integration program students were drawing pictures of themselves and their classmates as artists and scientists. They also demonstrated understanding of the process of inquiry in their journals by identifying skills while investigating light. The unexpected outcome of this project was that
these fourth grade students increased their scores on their state standardized tests. Due to the success of this approach, a curriculum has been developed by California Academy of Sciences and de Young staff called “Where We Meet” and teacher professional development around it has been offered in various venues from conference short courses, to teacher workshops, to online learning courses. The next steps for education staff from the California Academy of Sciences and de Young is to continue working together to integrate science, art, and literacy and to seek funding to do more research around integrated curriculum, skill development, and teacher
pedagogy.

One of my great concerns for this country’s future is the underperformance of our youth when it comes to achievement in math and science. In December 2010, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released the results of its 2009 Program for International Assessment (PISA) test, administered to thousands of 15-year-old students in 65 different countries around the world. The results were not good for the United States. In science, the U.S. ranked 23rd with a score of 502, well below Shanghai, China (575), Finland (554), Hong Kong, China (549), Singapore (542), Japan (539), Korea (538), and New Zealand (532), and just one point above the average score on this subject area of 501.

In math, the U.S. fared even worse, ranking 32rd on the PISA test with a score of 487. This score was 10 points below the average score (497) of the 65 participating countries. Number 1 was again Shanghai, China with a score of 600, followed by Singapore (562), Hong Kong, China (555), Korea (546), Taiwan (543), and Finland (541).

These results underscore the fact that we must find new approaches to educating our youth in math and science — the current approaches are clearly broken. This area, along with improving innovation in our country, will be the primary focuses of my blog posts.

I look forward to posting, and to entering into a conversation with all of you soon.

These conferences will bring together scientists, artists, educators, museum professionals, business leaders, researchers and policymakers, to explore the role of the arts in science education and participate in hands-on workshops led by some of the world’s leading practitioners of arts-based learning.

As we prepare for the conferences, several members of our advisory committee (including several leading educators and scientists, as well as a business writer and an arts leader) will join with our staff and guest bloggers from ScienceBlogs, to lay out the landscape and articulate many of the issues and challenges we’ll be discussing at the conferences.

We look forward to hearing your comments!