For more information, contact Stephanie Ely, (937) 775-3232. November 6, 2009 Innovative Wright State class uses art and music to help teach science and mathematics The art students take a simple math concept, contour mapping, and use it to create a mask using the contours of a face. The music students apply this same contour mapping concept to illustrate how music rises and falls as the sound of the instruments fade in and out during a song. “It’s a visual replication of what they hear, which gets the students to listen more deeply to a piece,” said Bill Jobert, a Wright State bassoon instructor and assistant director of bands. Jobert, along with Ben Montague, an assistant professor art, and Ann Farrell, Ph.D., a mathematics education professor, direct Wright State University’s pilot class “Teaching Science through Music and Art.” The class is the cornerstone of the STEAM3 (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Music, Math and Medicine) program for art education, music education and math/science education majors who are learning to teach science and math classes in area schools using music or art as the methodology. Erik Potts, one of these students, is a teacher education major who also plays in the Wright State Symphonic Band. He is learning how to prepare lesson plans and class assignments in the multidisciplinary class. But he is learning a lot more. “It’s really neat to think of ways to bring music to a math class and learn how art concepts like form and shading can be used in math,” he explained. Potts was talking about the contour mapping unit for ninth graders he will be teaching at the Dayton Regional STEM School. The STEM School, along with two Dayton schools, Stivers School for the Performing Arts and Charity Adams Early Academy for Girls, constitute the locations where Potts and his fellow Wright State students implement what they are learning in their pilot class. The students also work with area teachers, and the lessons designed are presented in the actual classrooms of these teachers. At Stivers, the Wright State students are working in a seventh grade science class on Arctic ecology systems where the students learn about predators versus prey and animals adapting to their environment. The art concept is explored in learning how the Inuit people create sculpture pieces from rocks that reflect Inuit beliefs and adaptations to the harsh environment of the Arctic. The music aspect covers the technique of throat singing and rhythm work on drums that is part of the Inuit culture and storytelling. “In using art and music to help students become engaged in science, STEAM3 represents university education at its imaginative best,” said Charles Taylor, dean of Wright State’s College of Liberal Arts. “No discipline is by itself sufficient for understanding our complex world, nor does any speak effectively to every student. In combination with diverse ways of study, each contributes uniquely to the advancement of human learning.” Farrell was attracted to STEAM3 because “interesting connections between mathematics and other disciplines are taught. It’s always nice when a well-educated person is also well rounded. Someone who knows mathematics or science ought to know more than just their discipline.” Montague said the Wright State class is believed to be the only one of its kind in Ohio and maybe in the entire country. “We don’t know of anyone else who is combining art and music to help teach science and math.” The STEAM3 project, which started in the fall of 2008, came about through the efforts of the late Edgar Hardy, a Wright State founder and a chemist and former director of the Monsanto Company in Dayton. He provided the funding for STEAM3 to demonstrate his interest in developing a program combining the visual arts, music and science. Hardy approached Herb Dregalla, chair of the Wright State Department of Music, to share his thoughts, and after Dregalla talked with Taylor and other Wright State officials, STEAM3 was created. “Ben Montague and Bill Jobert have expanded the initial concept in some exciting new ways, and now Ann Farrell has expanded this even further,” said Dregalla. “Dr. Hardy supported these expansions financially, which has helped this program develop. I believe the methods developed and used in STEAM3 have the potential to make a major impact on the teaching of science and mathematics.” # # # NOTE: For more details, contact Montague at (937) 775-4116, Jobert at (937) 775-3170 and/or Farrell at (937) 775-2193.
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