What is STEAM

It started with STEM . . . A great place to begin growth.

STEM is an acronym for SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING AND MATHEMATICS. The term is used as an education policy and a curriculum option for educators and policy makers.

We added STEAM . . . which we use to propel the other other areas of education.

STEAM is an acronym for SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, ART AND MATHEMATICS. The initiative began so that the arts and design would be included in STEM education.

The founder of this initiative is Georgette Yakman. The idea of adding the arts to the STEM acronym, allows for a formal way to link the subjects together and correspond them to the global socioeconomic world. Yakman’s defining sentence is: “Science and Technology, interpreted through Engineering and the Arts, all based in elements of Mathematics”

At Laboratory5 Inc. We bring together all elements of STEAM and tie them up into a package to promote the work each individual is doing in their fields to celebrate this work. We produce experiences so that those unfamiliar with the glorious, quirky, nerdy, geeky qualities of all areas of STEAM can be explored as an adventure to explain these fields.

Laboratory5 Inc. is a small business based in Tempe, Arizona

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September 20, 2013labfive Leave a comment

Full STEAM Ahead

I represented the creative or the “A” in STEAM at the APGA 2013 Conference: Garden Evolution held in Phoenix. With my education colleagues from the Desert Botanical Garden. APGA is the American Public Garden Association. We presented to a packed house on how to use STEM in a garden education program and more specifically how to add the Arts right in the middle to create a more well rounded offing to students during tours. We avoid the typical power point and instead I created ‘slides’ to serve as a set design for us to speak in front. This allowed the focus to be on our words and the images from nature and industrial, recycled bits and pieces as inspiration only; not more words of information on the screen. The talk was very successful with a lot of interest nationally. Here are the slide images with the full power point downloadable at the bottom.

Click here for the PowerPoint: Full STEAM Ahead You are welcome to use it I only ask that you credit Laboratory5 Inc.

Laboratory5 Inc. is a small business based in Tempe, Arizona

Visit our website: Laboratory5 Follow us on Twitter: @lab5 Become a fan on Facebook: Laboratory5
Contact Us at anytime – we’d love to hear from you.

What is STEAM? Click HERE

June 20, 2013labfive Leave a comment

Plants from deserts of the world

Every year on Veterans Day and my birthday means a day at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum near Superior, AZ. I love the mountainous area, the plants from deserts around the world, the little streams of water scattered around and the occasional small waterfall trickling. At the front of the Arboretum there are demonstration gardens that are always so lovely and welcoming. I enjoy the Arboretum for it’s roughness different from a botanical garden.

About the Arboretum: Colonel William Boyce Thompson found his greatest interest in a house he built in the Arizona hills, near Superior. This is where he built his Picket Post house. When a friend asked him how much land he owned around Picket Post House, he replied, “I own it all as far as the eye can see, because I love it.” Thompson is reported to have been happier in his Picket Post home than any other time before. He picked Franklin J. Crider, University of Arizona, to establish the Boyce Thompson Southwest Arboretum on a portion of the 400 acres he owned. The initial mission of the Arboretum was to study the plants of different desert countries and to make the results available to the public.

Garden for me is also a perfect cross section of science, feats of natures engineering and artistic expression. STEAM at it’s finest.