Born in Silicon Valley in 1978 to an electrical engineering nerd father, I grew up surrounded by the amusement industry. It was no surprise that he sat me down at the Mosaic web browser and said, “Here Brent, this is the Internet, play around.” I had no idea what I was looking at, and as there were less than 100 computers on the Internet at the time, there was comparatively little to play with. But the seeds of change were taking root. People were actively exploring the creative, entertaining and powerful solutions that evolved from computers.

Early Memories
A few miles north, the Exploratorium was a veritable icon of play and science and we would visit the cavernous warehouse religiously. Not to be confused with museums – quiet, stuffy places with ‘no touching’ – the Exploratorium was noisy and required user interaction to make the magic happen. In a playful way, the curators revealed the awe-inspiring magic and accessibility of science to all children. For those without tinkering fathers like mine, here was a venue that could get them started. For me, it added fuel to my geek fire. In the same way that early computer and Internet pioneers explored to better lives, the creators of the Exploratorium explored how to better education. I don’t know of any operation that has so elegantly combined entertainment and education.

From STEM to STEAM
It’s the graceful combination of entertainment and education that attracts me to the recent addition of art to STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths). There’s been a lot of talk in the education community these past few years about the need for more students to be trained in STEM. My challenge with STEM is that for the uninitiated, the hard sciences are intimidating. If a child is not already exhibiting at a science fair or exposed to technology by their friends and family, it’s a fairly impenetrable set of disciplines. So, how best can we expose a young learner to some early successes and avoid discouraging them? Add art to create STEAM and different pathways appear!

Anyone can make art, and if a student is involved in making art in STEAM-based projects, they’re exposed to the other four disciplines in a less intimidating fashion. They’re already at the table and around the tools, so there’s less of a threat to test the waters. Art projects that use desktop manufacturing tools are still art, but the user might now have a reason to learn a vector art program so they can incorporate products from a laser cutter. While Minecraft is a game, it’s also a powerful authoring environment that enables art and design, as well as programming.

Project-Based Learning
The Exploratorium is great at focusing on projects. Each installation is its own real world application of whatever real-life principle the creator wanted to convey. Better yet, many of the big installations have smaller home versions that guests can even take home to build their own version.

I remember the small plastic element that enabled us to marry two-litre soda bottles to create our version of the tornado exhibit. We added food colouring to the liquid and stuffed toys inside. The fact we could see it at the Exploratorium and then make it at home was awesome.

Moving Forward
I’m thrilled that almost two decades on, technology and project-based learning have finally taken root and are making huge headways toward reforming education. Technology has overpromised and underdelivered to education for far too long, but the perfect storm is now upon us. Project-based approaches to education are cropping up everywhere. It’s an exciting time to be a curious human.