This summer, my engagement with STEAM smART centered on three key objectives: student benefit, organizational growth, and personal professional development.

Serving Our Students:

STEM is often presented as a critical field for future employment, yet Louisiana lags in providing related job and learning opportunities. Furthermore, STEM fields are frequently perceived as rigid or lacking creativity. Transforming STEM into STEAM makes these fields more accessible to students who may not identify with traditional math and science, while also allowing those who are interested to develop critical thinking and iterative process skills. Both STEM and the arts are process-driven and foster creativity, making them an ideal pairing for STEAM. The upcoming opening of our education center will provide new opportunities for STEAM programming beyond our school-based Creative Artists Residency. A summer camp, strategically timed for late summer when other camps conclude, emerged as an excellent way to introduce New Orleans students to STEAM. An immersive, fun environment where students can experience the integration of math, science, and art will hopefully foster a desire for creative process experiences and allow learners to choose their learning paths rather than having them entirely prescribed.

Propelling KID smART:

Future KID smART Center for Arts & Education

For 26 years, KID smART has been a presence in the New Orleans and regional arts education landscape, though we've become almost exclusively focused on arts integration. The new center will enable us to expand back into non-arts integration areas, with STEAM as a focus. There are numerous STEM organizations and companies we can partner with to connect students with invaluable resources. Our current position as regional thought leaders in Arts Integration provides a strong foundation to achieve similar recognition in STEAM.

Contributing to My Practice as an Arts Integration Specialist:

I've always been drawn to what is now called STEM. As a child, I excelled in science and math, aspiring to be a professor who conducted experiments, made interesting connections, and explored the world's past, present, and future. It was surprising to be told I had to choose between the sciences and the arts, as I viewed them as fundamentally similar: identifying a problem or idea, developing a process to achieve results, critically analyzing that process while experimenting, and then repeating the process with tweaked variables for different outcomes. This integrated approach defines "Professor Paul" for me.

The WVUE STEAM segments over the past year and a half were a joy, allowing me to explore and hone my STEAM skills outside the constraints of co-taught classes. I generated enough ideas for the rest of the year's segments, only to discover we were scheduled for just two more. This led to the emergence of Professor Paul and STEAM smART! Recognizing my role in program development, I drew inspiration from the WVUE segments to create an in-house STEAM program. This allows me to continue exploring while hopefully sharing that enthusiasm with young learners in New Orleans. To develop the STEAM smART segments, I compiled a list of past activities and new ideas, then grouped them by their primary STEM focus (Science, Technology, Engineering, or Math), ensuring at least two from each category. With greater control over content and length, I could expand on ideas and better incorporate artistic elements. This joyful teaching, I believe, leads to joyful learning!

Through these STEAM smART initiatives—the summer camp, potential new partnerships, STEAM smART video segments, and exciting in-house STEAM events—I believe KID smART is well-positioned to amplify the joy through the arts that we strive to provide in the Greater New Orleans area and beyond.