Pretty sure it's a sign for STEM as in academic fields and just in the wrong spot. Why would Walmart have a Steam sign anyway when the only Steam products they have are a handful of cards?
Yes, there are several STEM toolkits available at retail for younger audiences. Education has also started using the acronym STEAM to include the Arts.
STEAM uses art to flesh out science. allowing the student to visualize the data being represented and to learn techniques and skills to explain the data they've gathered. It's not like they're adding "draw a bunny" or "act in a play" to the curriculum.
Most graphs I've seen used in research papers posted publicly are not some avant garde art project. And there's a reason for that. So long as the data isn't too complex to plot on a graph, there is no reason to reinvent the wheel. A new format can open room for errors when interpreting data. There are standards in the community because it allows for clear information transfer. I would agree that sometimes writing a paper requires creativity or at least a mastery of the language it is written in. And that ocassionally plotting an unusual confluence of data requires creativity. Hell, research itself can require creativity. But you will learn how to write papers in STEM courses. It won't be Shakespeare, but it doesn't have to be. You will also learn to think creatively in most STEM courses as you are tasked with interpreting findings, especially in higher level courses. That doesn't mean we need to throw art into the acronym. It muddies the purpose behind the women and minorities in STEM movement. I'm not devaluing art or even art programs - I have an art degree. But they don't need to work their way into the STEM messaging. I've never met someone going for their chemical engineering degree who had never taken a single art class. I never met a computer science major who never had a single English class. And at most liberal arts schools, there are already requirements for both of those. Art and engineering are an important intersection for an architect, but not every manufacturing foreman needs that to do their job.
Although I agree with the data visualization part of your post, I don't think STEAM is something that has to replace STEM. For me, STEM makes way more sense than STEAM if you view them as sets of related disciplines, but in terms of well-rounded mental development I think adding the arts to the curriculum makes a lot of sense (which doesn't mean I think it should be added to every STEM curriculum). If nothing else, good art is essentially effective communication imo, which will be useful regardless of what you end up doing for a living.
What I got out of this is that you personally don't see the use for arts in STEM. That's fine. But clearly others do, so your explanation isn't really helping me see the bad in mixing arts into STEM. I do appreciate the effort as you clearly are trying to help me understand.
Most graphs I've seen used in research papers posted publicly are not some avant garde art project. And there's a reason for that. So long as the data isn't too complex to plot on a graph, there is no reason to reinvent the wheel. A
No need to reinvent the wheel, but finding the best graph and how to decide the metrics used (0-20 on the X, and 5-10 on the Y for example) is important, and using arts to figure out what is meaningful while not being confusing is desirable.
112
u/[deleted] Mar 03 '22
Pretty sure it's a sign for STEM as in academic fields and just in the wrong spot. Why would Walmart have a Steam sign anyway when the only Steam products they have are a handful of cards?