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Innovative Arts Programs Require Innovative Partnerships: A Case Study of STEAM Partnering between an Art Gallery and a Natural History Museum

ABSTRACT The arts animate learning because they are inherently experiential and because of their potential to develop creative and critical thinking skills in students. These same skills are valued in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, but the arts have not been consistently included in STEM lessons. We transformed our STEM programming into STEAM programming (STEM plus arts) by creating an innovative partnership between two informal learning environments, the Braithwaite Fine Arts Gallery and the Garth and Jerri Frehner Museum of Natural History at Southern Utah University. The partnership resulted in a STEAM learning program that integrated art and science for K-12 students. We incorporated an art exhibition, a hands-on lesson in art, and an immersive lesson in science that culminated in a student project that merged concepts from both art and science. Through programs each fall from 2012 through 2014, we helped over 6,000 students from southern Utah use concepts from art to deepen their understanding of caterpillar defenses, fish ecomorphology, and pollinator biology.