Panel: Exploring the A in STEAM: the Arts, Agency and Activism
In a world of complex and entangled challenges, learning and engagement in out-of-school spaces must reflect reality, and situate science as part of our culture, enmeshed and intertwined with other disciplines, a deeply human and collective endeavour. In designing for learning and engagement, how can we ensure meaningful involvement of the arts in STEAM programming? Could the A also serve to develop audience or learner agency and activism?
Speakers will draw on experiences including culturally-responsive science communication involving traditional arts and storytelling, open schooling for science education that embeds approaches from the cultures of design and the maker movement, and an institutional stragegy and creative programming that explicity support and encourage youth activism.
Biography
Mairéad is an educator, researcher and science communicator in the School of Education, Trinity College Dublin. She works with pre-service science teachers to foster curiosity, creativity and agency in young people. A member of Trinity College Dublin's Science & Society research group, her research interests include transdisciplinary science education and public engagement, and learning ecosystems.