Innovator Adventures: Full STEAM Ahead!

It's been like Christmas for me the last few weeks as much of my new furniture and kits have arrived at my LMCs. I love opening the different items for the kits and getting excited about my ideas all over again. I have also been putting out the furniture as it has been arriving and listening to the kids as they get excited over it. My favorite comment came from a fifth grade who said, "It's starting to look like a real library in here." That sparked a good conversation about why it wasn't already a real library. the biggest feedback I received is that it wasn't comfortable before to read. We just had hard chairs and hard tables.

Today I was involved in a webinar done through DEMCO. Amy Koester, the youth & family program coordinator at Skokie Public Library in Illinois, presented on "STEAM & the Maker Mentality for School-Age Youth". This was one of the better webinars I have attended in awhile. I got lots of useful information and was not overwhelmed with too much information. Everything that was suggested was doable, the supporting information helpful, and the project ideas low-medium in cost. All good and supportive in a public elementary school on a public elementary school library budget. The best part is it will help when I address staff so that there is more buy-in.

I guess I should jump backwards a little bit to kind of explain what STEAM is and means. STEAM stands for:

Since the the early 2000's, the focus on teaching arts and science together has been a hot topic. Even Mae Jemison said in her 2002 TED Talk that "The arts and sciences are avatars of human creativity." The ultimate goal with STEAM is to foster the open-ended exploration in the areas of science, technology, engineering, arts, and math. We need to share with the kids that there is no one right way to do things which will help their problem-solving skills.

For more on the history of STEM: http://www.iteea.org/Resources/PressRoom/AustraliaPaper.pdf

Amy shared some important reasons for why we should have STEAM in the library. First and foremost, the kids love it. They enjoy the time for exploration and personalized learning. Also, literacy is multifaceted. Other reasons are that we foster that lifelong learning in all ages and that interest is a powerful motivator. Carl Sagan said, "Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist." Let's teach kids that it is okay to be daring, innovative, and to fail and try again.

Besides STEAM activities, adding the maker mentality to your LMC is also important. The maker attitude allows for the exploration of new skills and to create something meaningful like a product or an experience. Allowing for making in the library is a way of offering new programs and services, like STEAM it promotes lifelong learning, you can facilitate community engagement and it helps to put the library as third space (home, work/school, library). They don't have to come to the library, they choose to come. The best thing about having making in your library is that if you need to, you can really make it a low cost activity. You don't need speciality materials or have a lot of experience to make. You can also bring in community players to help facilitate the making workshops like artists.

Amy shared some go to resources that I encourage you to check out. They help to give ideas or materials to make STEAM and MakerSpaces a part of your library.

Go-To Resources