AmeriSTEAM Academies
Nine billion people are expected to inhabit Planet Earth by 2050. Without agricultural research, there is little hope of sustaining this population surge, given that arable land and water supplies are fixed commodities.
-Donald Kennedy, Science, October 2014
Academia is not producing sufficient PhDs in the plant sciences to solve the crop production challenges facing a rapidly growing population.
-Alan M. Jones, The Scientist, October 2014
As plant science becomes increasingly important, we need to attract the brightest and best to careers in plant research. School education does not include the most interesting or relevant aspects of plant science, and discourages young people from studying the subject at university.
-C.S. Grierson et.al., New Phytologist, August 2011.
Okay, so how do we stimulate student interest in plant science? How about making the study of botany more exciting and fun and relevant? Perhaps show students how to use plants to make musical instruments. Or unique works of art. Or encourage them to come up with their own research projects to address real-world problems and provide them with the tools and guidance to see these projects through. This is the goal of AmeriSTEAM’s Botanical Music, Art, and Research Academy.
If you’d like to know when registration begins for this Academy, please send an email to: info@ameristeam.org. Subject Line: Botanical Music, Art, and Research Academy.
Visual Art and
Applied Mathematics Academy.
I love art, and I want to be an artist someday. But, I’m just not any good at math.
Math and science are my favorite subjects. But I’m just not very artistic.
Teachers hear statements like these from students all too often. It’s a shame too, because such statements frequently become self-fulfilling prophesies. And then we have commercial artists who struggle with the math for a business proposal, and scientists and mathematicians who can’t represent their ideas visually.
AmeriSTEAM’s Visual Art and Applied Mathematics Academy is designed help students overcome these destructive and debilitating self-doubts. We use hands-on experiences to demonstrate how math can be applied to improve an artist’s work, and how art can be used to enhance the communication of a scientific or engineering concept.
If you’d like to know when registration begins for this Academy, please send an email to: info@ameristeam.org. Subject Line: Visual Art and Applied Mathematics Academy.
