Messing About with STEAM in Chicago

The exhibit, Cultivate the Scientist in Every Child: The Philosophy of Frances and David Hawkins, is currently being hosted by Cultivating the Early Years, a Chicago-based collaborative. The exhibit is currently housed at the North Park Village Nature Center in Chicago, Illinois.

This past weekend, Boulder educators Lauren Weatherly and Alex Cruickshank, traveled to Chicago to facilitate a workshop in conjunction with the exhibit. Eolithically, natural materials felt like the appropriate material to to explore at a workshop in a nature center. Participants in the workshop brought beautiful natural materials for us to explore:

Following a period of open-ended circle-phasing, participants were offered the choice to continue along a thread they had already developed or choose from the following invitations:

• compose a dream environment
• construct a working machine
• create a story

One table joined together to create a group story. They reflected on the time it took for them to observe each other making, to discuss their possibilities, and to come together to mess about with collaboration. They reflected on the possibilities for children when they have access to time. 

On the iPad, this group messed about with iStopMotion to create a story about the figures they had made. They also reflected on how it feels try an experience that is completely brand new and how they were intrinsically motivated to keep playing with the app. 

Another participant reflected on the satisfaction of being able to revisit the same materials over a long period of time. She reflected on the incorporation of photographs into the work to offer both revisiting and expansion of ideas. 

She put together the photograph, "Seeds and Links" using the app Poetics 

and a video, "Transforming", using the app Waterlogue

IMG 0995 from ULS iPads on Vimeo.

In the square phase reflecting at the end of the workshop, one participant mentioned how the tone and method the  facilitators' used to present possibilities strongly influenced the rest of her working time. It was such a powerful reminder of the strength of the teachers' relationship with children and the mutual influence each party has on the outcome. Small tonal changes can rapidly change the direction of the work.