Putting the "A" in STEAM

I will be the first one to tell you that I am not always the best at integrating Art into STEM. Many teachers can do this seamlessly, but I am not one of them. Recently I was invited to participate in "Art Discovery Day" at one of the elementary schools that I support. I jumped at the chance to open the STEM Lab for some "STEAM" and to challenge myself to create Art activities in the STEM Lab.

I decided that I wanted to include robots in the Art Discovery Day, so I grabbed some Ozobots and Spheros and came up with a plan. From my experience, students really love drawing the line codes for Ozobot to follow, and often don't get enough time in the STEM Lab to do so. So, with this in mind, I pulled some giant butcher paper and brought brand new markers. The paper was set up on the ground, with the markers, Ozobots, and a copy of the Ozocodes. The directions given to students were simply to draw line codes for Ozobot to follow, and work together with your group.

With the Spheros, I've always wanted to paint with them, but never had the perfect opportunity, until now. I put together a big box to keep the Sphero contained, and pulled more big butcher paper. With dots of paint scattered around the paper, students were told to drive the Sphero and spread the paint. I set a timer for 2 minutes for each student, and that seemed to work really well.

In addition to the Ozobots and the Spheros, I opened up a few computers for the "Ozobot Shape Tracer" game which is my favorite way to introduce students to Ozoblockly coding. Not all students want to get down on the floor and draw or paint, so offering a third option of computer coding worked out really well.

The Art Day sessions were successful and students moved between activities on their own, when they felt they were ready to change. I didn't hear any complaints from the students that attended my sessions, and it appeared that most of them were having a blast!

​If you are planning to integrate some "A" in to your STEM, I highly suggest these open-ended activities that really give students the chance to create and play with the robots in a different and unique way.