DMS+Reflection

DMS - STEAM Representative Culminating Experience = an art and science collaboratively planned and taught lesson:

Critical thinking asks "Yes but..." while creative thinking asks "Yes AND" so we decided to work together to stop making it "Science versus Art" and make it "Science AND Art" by thinking creatively about how the two subjects enrich each other.

The art of science and the science of art are connected. In looking for cross-curricular connections to reinforce the connection we decided that color and light were a perfect fit. We team taught a lesson that explored the science of color through light after the students had spent a week studying the science of color in art through pigment. We used prisms, flashlights with colored caps, colored pencils, white paper, regular flashlights and lots of inquiry based questions.

The response was wonderful. The kids were engaged and intrigued. When asked to make purple light with a red and blue flashlight (red and blue make purple in pigment) there were amazed to get white light instead.

We got questions we never expected such as "Where does light come from?" and "Why is light white?". We were happy to answer that we needed to all find out those answers together.

This lesson showed us that we have to help the students explore the possibilities, expand your mindset, be curious and look for connections between subjects - especially science and art- to make learning more fun.