STEM to STEAM as an Approach to Human Development: The Potential of Arts Practices for Supporting Wellbeing

Nicola Walshe; Elsa Lee; Danielle Lloyd; Ruth Sapsed

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Chapter 14 STEM to STEAM as an Approach to Human Development

The Potential of Arts Practices for Supporting Wellbeing

In: Why Science and Art Creativities Matter

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Nicola Walshe

Nicola Walshe
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Elsa Lee

Elsa Lee
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Danielle Lloyd

Danielle Lloyd
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Ruth Sapsed

Ruth Sapsed
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 337–357

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004421585_019

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Abstract

The National Science Foundation conceived the term STEM with an emphasis on the links between economic prosperity and knowledge-intensive jobs that are dependent on science and technology. As such, traditionally STEM subject initiatives have aligned with and facilitated a largely economic conceptualisation of human and social development. It seems likely that the wellbeing crisis that we are experiencing in the West is linked to this. This is compounded by the rising influence of technology which has facilitated what is sometimes called the indoorisation of children, and the raised levels of parental concern about safety. From this follows an associated sense of disenfranchisement for children, with consequences for their wellbeing and happiness.

This chapter begins with an overview of the impact of STEM on wellbeing, arguing that a focus on human development after Sen and Nussbaum is a more holistic approach to understanding wellbeing. In this understanding, wellbeing arises from an entanglement of threads representing the different elements of an individual’s life, such as their physical health, their social networks, their access to wild, natural and outdoor spaces, and so forth. This chapter focuses specifically on this access to wild, natural and outdoor spaces (using the arts and arts-based research to mediate this access) to consider how the capability approach provides a foundation for a broadly conceived notion of wellbeing that incorporates environmental sustainability, social justice and future economic wellbeing. Nussbaum’s list of capabilities is used as a framework with which to analyse focus group data from artists working with the arts-based charity Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination (CCI). The chapter concludes by considering how working with artists as co-researchers and how the co-development of artwork between children and artists might expose a more holistic understanding of the entangled roles of art and wild/natural/outdoor spaces in the wellbeing of young people. In so doing the chapter adds to conceptualisations of childhoodnature which seek to demonstrate that children and nature are inextricably linked through shared characteristics such as freedom and a non-linear view of time.

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Why Science and Art Creativities Matter

(Re-)Configuring STEAM for Future-Making Education

Series: Critical Issues in the Future of Learning and Teaching, Volume: 18

Cover Why Science and Art Creativities Matter

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004421585

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 23 Dec 2019

Subjects
- Education

Front Matter

Acknowledgement

Figures and Tables

Notes on Contributors

Prelude (Re-)Configuring STEAM in Future-Making Education

Part 1 Positioning STEAM in Future-Making Education

Introduction to Part 1

Chapter 1 Where Science Ends, Art Begins?

Chapter 2 Becoming Bird

Chapter 3 Posthuman De/Colonising Teacher Education in South Africa

Chapter 4 Between Will and Wildness in STEAM Education

Part 2 Why Does Science Matter?

Introduction to Part 2

Chapter 5 Developing an Ecological View through STEAM Pedagogies in Science Education

Chapter 6 Listening in Science Education

Chapter 7 Science-Arts as Verbs

Part 3 Why Do the Arts Matter?

Introduction to Part 3

Chapter 8 Reconfiguring STEAM through Material Enactments of Mathematics and Arts

Chapter 9 STEAM Education, Art/Science and Quiet Activism

Chapter 10 Embracing the Serpent

Chapter 11 Linking the Missing Links

Part 4 STEAM Reconfigurings in Practice

Introduction to Part 4

Chapter 12 Creative Pedagogy and Environmental Responsibility

Chapter 13 Learning Mathematical Concepts as a Whole-Body Experience

Chapter 14 STEM to STEAM as an Approach to Human Development

Chapter 15 Taste as Science, Aesthetic Experience and Inquiry

Chapter 16 On Sensorial Experiences at the Beach

Chapter 17 On Methodological Accounts of Improvisation and “Making with” in Science and Music

Postlude Un-Conclusions

Epilogue What Knowledge Do We Need for Future-Making Education?

Back Matter

Index

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Chapter 14 STEM to STEAM as an Approach to Human Development

The Potential of Arts Practices for Supporting Wellbeing

Abstract

Citation Info

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Why Science and Art Creativities Matter

(Re-)Configuring STEAM for Future-Making Education

Table of Contents

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