Category: Science

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The Harmonious Integration: Why Music Finds Its Rightful Place in S.T.E.A.M Education

Why Music Finds Its Rightful Place in S.T.E.A.M Education

Integrating diverse disciplines is a pillar in becoming a creative problem-solver. One intriguing partnership that the STEAM-Team is excited to explore is the marriage of music and STEAM (Sci, Tech, Eng, Art, Math) education. This fusion might seem unlikely at first glance, but when explored, it reveals a symphony of benefits that resonate through both realms. 

Let’s check out the top (3) engaging and vibrant harmonies between music and STEAM education —

  • How Does Music Enrich the Cognitive Capacities of our Students?
  • How Does Music Connect to Science & Technology?
  • How Does Music Help Develop Key Skills that are Essential for STEM Fields?

1. Cognitive Orchestration

If you think music and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) are worlds apart, think again. Music is not only a form of art and expression, but also a powerful tool for enhancing cognitive skills that are essential for STEM learning. In this section, we will explore how music can help students master STEM subjects by:

– Improving pattern recognition

– Boosting creative problem-solving

– Strengthening memory skills

Let’s Dive In!

a. Pattern Recognition: The Key to Data and Equations

One of the core skills in STEM is the ability to recognize and analyze patterns in data, equations, graphs, and other forms of information. Music is full of patterns, from the notes and chords to the rhythm and harmony. Musicians learn to read, play, and compose music by identifying and manipulating these patterns. Research shows that musical training enhances pattern recognition skills in both auditory and visual domains, which can transfer to mathematical and scientific reasoning. For example, a study conducted by Dr. Gordon Shaw, Neurological Research, found that children who received piano lessons performed better than their peers in tasks involving fractions, ratios, and proportions.

b. Creative Problem-Solving: The Spark of Innovation

Another skill that STEM learners need is the ability to solve complex problems with creativity and innovation.

Music is a rich source of inspiration and imagination, as it allows students to express themselves in unique ways. Music also fosters divergent thinking, which is the ability to generate multiple solutions to a problem. Divergent thinking is crucial for STEM fields, where novel and unconventional approaches often lead to breakthroughs. For instance, a study found that engineering students who participated in musical activities scored higher on tests of divergent thinking than those who did not.

c. Memory Skills: The Foundation of Learning

A third skill that STEM learners benefit from is the ability to memorize and recall information effectively.

Music is a powerful memory enhancer, as it uses rhythm, melody, emotion, and repetition to encode information in the brain. Music can also help students remember complex formulas, equations, and concepts by associating them with musical cues. For example, a study found that students who learned physics concepts through songs performed better on tests than those who learned through traditional methods.

2. Sonic Science and Technological Innovation

Beneath the surface of every melody lies a world of acoustics, physics, and technology. Integrating music with STEM subjects offers students an immersive experience into the science of sound, sparking curiosity and innovation:

a. Exploring Sound Waves

Music is made of sound waves, which are vibrations that travel through the air or other mediums. By investigating the physics of sound waves and resonance, students gain an understanding of fundamental concepts such as frequency, amplitude, wavelength, and resonance, while creating musical instruments or analyzing acoustic phenomena.

b. Digital Harmonies

Music production and composition embrace cutting-edge technology.

Integrating digital tools introduces students to coding and software and empowers them to craft their sonic landscapes. You can also learn about digital audio formats, signal processing, synthesis, and sampling. Technology gives you the freedom and flexibility to express yourself musically in new ways.

c. Innovative Intersections

 The marriage of music and technology has given rise to groundbreaking inventions, from electronic instruments to sophisticated audio algorithms. By exploring these innovations, you can discover how music and technology solve problems, meet needs, and create opportunities. Students engaging with music in STEM contexts are primed to become the next generation of innovators.

3. STEM Jam Sessions: Collaboration and Communication

STEM industries thrive on collaboration and effective communication. Music, with its ensemble performances and harmonious dialogues, provides an excellent model for fostering these essential skills:

a. Team Dynamics

Playing in a musical ensemble, whether you join a band or an orchestra, mirrors the collaborative environment of STEM workplaces. Students learn to synchronize efforts, adapt to diverse perspectives, and collectively strive for excellence.

b. Communicative Precision

Music is a form of communication that can convey complex emotions and messages. When you play or write music, you practice being precise, clear, and concise with your words and sounds. These are the same skills you need to communicate your STEM findings and ideas to others. And just as musicians respond to subtle cues during performances, STEM learners refine their ability to convey complex ideas with precision, clarity, and conciseness.

c. Creative Synergy

Music is also a creative outlet that allows you to experiment with different styles, genres, and techniques. When you improvise or compose music, you learn how to think on your feet, adapt to changing situations, and solve problems creatively. These are the same skills that you need to innovate and discover new things in STEM fields.

TLDR 

The integration of music into STEM education is not merely a harmonious indulgence; it is a strategic investment in fostering well-rounded, adaptable, and innovative learners. By harnessing the cognitive, scientific, and collaborative potential of music, educators unlock doors to engagement and excitement in the STEM journey. The combination of melody and mathematics, rhythm and research, creates a symphony of holistic learning that resonates deeply with students, ensuring they step onto a path paved with endless possibilities.

So as you can see, music is more than just a hobby or a passion. It is also a cognitive orchestrator that can help students excel in STEM subjects. By integrating music into STEM education, we can enrich the cognitive capacities of our students and prepare them for the challenges of the 21st century. Music and STEM are not opposites; they are complementary parts of a harmonious whole.

Get Started

Need more music in your life and your children’s? A great place to start is online with Hoffman Academy. No, this is not a sponsored post. Just a great resource that our family has used to begin our children’s musical education. 

We love that there are 300+ comprehensive piano video lessons, totally free! Joseph Hoffman and his academy are on a mission to bring music into more homes and communities worldwide. They believe everyone should have access to music education. 

Our son, X, used the 100% free lessons for a year. Then once we saw the benefit and success of using Hoffman Academy, we upgraded him to the Premium account to have even more resources at his fingertips!

As always, don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions. We are here to support, mentor, and inspire!

– Allie out!

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Using New Tools to Teach Advanced Concepts – Minecraft Create!!

What is Minecraft & How Can it Teach 21st Century Skills?

Don’t let the blocky design fool you into thinking this game is basic!!  There are ‘deep layers‘ to Minecraft (pun intended for my Block Heads 🤣). For parents trying to figure out what Minecraft is and if it’s safe I understand! Answer: Yes, it is safe. I learned to play the game in order to figure that out myself. Now it’s an immersive family activity where we all can have fun together. It does have some exciting & maybe even scary characters for little ones like zombies and endermen. Word of caution, it does introduce the concept of ‘killing’ whether it’s to defend yourself from attack or via farming. There are weapons such as swords, bow & arrows, etc. but no guns. 

Minecraft is an open world in which you gather materials to eat, build, and create. The gameplay/mechanics can be as deep as you want them to be. In Creative Mode you have all the materials available to you so that you can just focus on creating without having to worry about being attacked by a mob or how to gather/’mine’ materials. In Survival Mode you must hunt and gather just like you would in the real world. I suggest you go chop down a tree to start ‘crafting’ items like a door and create a shelter to protect yourself from attacking mobs at night time 😬 There are some great resources online a simple google search will pull up to learn more. I also suggest checking out Youtube to see some of the amazing things done in Minecraft. 

Ok you may be asking, “Dr J how does this relate to learning?!?” To help answer this question, let’s dive into the Top 3 Questions on How STEAMwhiz Uses Minecraft as an Educational Tool!

  • How Can Minecraft be used to Teach Problem Solving?
  • How Does Minecraft Allow Students to Develop their Creativity?
  • What Modern Skills can our Students Learn from Minecraft?

How Minecraft can be used for Education

Investigating Automation
Minecraft creative expression
Eden PhysicalComputing

1. Problem Solving

The default game in Minecraft is called Survival Mode. It’s an open world where the main objective is to survive. You need to build shelter, figure out food to sustain yourself, and if you are crafty, you can figure out how to mine for diamonds and hunt the Ender Dragon. The are so many layers of problem-solving for example:  how do you build a house, create doors, can you farm animals, which animals are okay to eat, is it better to build near water or in a forest, where are the best places to mine, how can you craft new items? Players can test theories, ideas, try new things, and experience failure in a safe way and then repeat.

But what about “cheat” videos, where kids go on Youtube and learn how to do things on their own by copying what others post? Often kids won’t find exactly what they want so they research partial solutions and create entirely new solutions, awesome. This is not very different than finding solutions in the real world, whether they dive into a physics books, scientific research papers, or even a Youtube video. Kids will quickly learn about good and bad sources once they try to copy builds off Youtube.

 

 

2. Exercising the Creative Muscle

Minecraft is a true sand-box game. What does that mean? A sandbox game is a video game with a gameplay element that provides the player a great degree of creativity to interact with, usually without any predetermined goal, or in other words, with a goal that the player sets for themself.

The first shelter I ever created was a hole in the side of a mountain to hide from mobs XD But that was a limitation of my imagination. Players have recreated beautiful works of art, medieval castles, the statue of liberty, and even entire cities…block-by-block. The possibilities are endless! Creative Mode is an excellent way to unleash this creativity, especially for younger children. All the resources are available to them, they don’t have to worry about being attacked, and they can fly in the air as they build. All they have to do is imagine what they want to build and develop some GRIT as they start to build block-by-block. They can even custom design their avatar to look like a ninja or supergirl.


Learning electrical circuits and logical gates in Minecraft. a) Shows the circuit diagram of a 4-input AND gate b) Is the circuit built in Minecraft using Redstone. The torch will only turn on if all 4 wood plates are being pressed down =D

An even deeper layer – let’s take it to the next level! Minecraft has a system of making machines. Redstone is a resource that you can mine deep in the earth and is the equivalent of copper wires and electricity. You can build complex machines to automate tasks that take forever to do manually. Students can learn about electricity flow, repeaters, logical gates,  and building cool machines all using Redstone. The outlets for self-expression are amazing!!   

3. Modern Skills Development

The benefits keep adding up! Minecraft helped my kids learn to read, apply math fundamentals, and develop critical computer skills early. The game also encourages kids to develop logical reasoning. For example, mastering Redstone requires rigorous logical thinking. It teaches the essentials of computer programming, including debugging circuits to find solutions. At STEAMwhiz we also use Minecraft to develop challenges that require teamwork which provides students with a safe environment in order to develop communication skills, conflict resolution, plan development, and leadership. All critical skills are needed in the real world. 

Furthermore, we take it to next level yet again by teaching students how to write code to HACK into the Minecraft world using the world’s most powerful coding languages like Python and Java. We really blow their minds when we bridge the physical world by connecting LEDs, buzzers, and buttons that they can code to bridge the Minecraft virtual world to the real physical world by making sounds, teleporting at the push of a button, or creating a diamond detector that lights up an LED when near a diamond resource! This area of study is known as Physical Computing and I have used it throughout my physics career; whether to look at individual atoms on a multi-million dollar Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) at Brookhaven National Lab or to probe the magnetic moment of elements at the billion-dollar Advance Light Source synchrotron at Lawrence Berkley National Lab. I learned these skills during college — What will these young innovators come up with when they are starting as early as 6 years old?!

Get Started

Our SciTech Summer Camp is a great place to begin. It is Minecraft centric and goes deep into STEM! 

Minecraft is available across most major platforms. We encourage you try it out for yourself. To download it and get started click here . This is a great starting tutorial for Survival Mode. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to reach out and we will try to get you pointed in the right direction 😉

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Changing the Way Our Students Learn – 3D Printing

What is 3D Design and Fabrication?

Digital fabrication technology also referred to as 3D Printing or additive manufacturing, is a method of making a physical object from a three-dimensional model from a digital file or CAD model. It is ‘additive’ in that it doesn’t require a block of material or mold to manufacture physical objects, instead, the material is deposited, joined, or solidified under computer control, with material being added together, typically layer by layer. 

Sounds high-tech doesn’t it? But believe it or not, computer-aided additive manufacturing processes have been around for more than 30 years. However, the technology, now most commonly referred to as 3D Printing, is advancing rapidly, making its way to labs, schools, and even homes, reshaping manufacturing in the 21st century.

3D design and fabrication opens up inspiring possibilities and opportunities. Users from kids to adults can immediately hold, evaluate, test, and use their ideas, reshaping the fields of art, design, architecture, science, technology, and engineering by revolutionizing how things are made.

But you still might be asking:

  • Why bring 3D printing into the lab?
  • How can 3D Printing help my child learn problem-solving skills and develop critical thinking?
  • How will 3D Printing technology engage my child and help them in their future?

 To help answer those questions, let’s dive into the Top 3 Reasons STEAMwhiz Uses 3D Printing as an Educational Tool.

3D
Computer Aided Design
Minecraft 3D_blue

Top 3 Reasons for 3D Printing in the Lab

1. Put the “A” in S.T.E.A.M

The arts are vital for student success! 

3D Printers have emerged as powerful tools to introduce art in the lab, where students have the freedom to create, innovate, and solve. Through the use of 3D design and fabrication, our lab participants, your students, will engage themselves in the full design process from start to finish. Using computer-aided design (CAD) software, lab participants will design 3D objects using elements of art, math, and engineering and then create physical representations of that object using one of our several printers.

By designing 3D objects using CAD software, students can better understand how 3D shapes fit and work together to create 3D models based on their imagination, as well as scientific and mathematical principles. Being able to understand how 3D shapes work and fit together can also result in an improvement in spatial intelligence, an overlooked indicator of future student success, and a vital part of learning development, according to a recent study by Vanderbilt University.

2. Growth Mindset – Learn from Failure

In a traditional classroom, student success is normally measured by a passing or failing grade on a test. While there are many flaws in this approach, this approach mainly ignores the lessons that can be learned from failure. The lessons we learn from failure are just as important as the lessons we learn from success, or even more important. Failure develops resiliency, and being able to learn from our mistakes is a vital skill that we want to support in our students – not only as a character trait but also as a skill set for their future.

3D design and fabrication have been proven to be great tools for facilitating learning through failure. As students undergo the design process of analyzing, modifying, and testing their design multiple times before they are successful. If a print ends up failing, students will be able to go back to analyze and modify their design until they are successful. Even Yoda said, “The greatest teacher, failure is.”

3. Real-World Problem Solving

Giving our students dynamic experiences can instill the passion for ‘thinking & doing’ and plant seeds for the future.

Not only does the 3D printing process from design to fabrication make subject matter and technical subjects more engaging but also ignites students’ curiosity and interest in STEM fields – this is especially valuable when applied at an early age. This is why we have created a lab program specifically designed for our littlest ‘thinkers & doers’ from 5.5 to 7 years old.

One of the biggest benefits of 3D printing is its ability to facilitate real-world problem-solving in the lab. Whether it’s accelerating the innovation process so students can experience the entire product design process from A to Z or innovating actual designs to solve current real-world problems from assistive technology to 3D printed coral, to large structures such as bridges, houses, and even boats.

3D Printing has the power to change the way students learn! But make no mistake – leveraging educational technology isn’t as simple as having the latest and greatest technology in the lab – it’s about effectively integrating that technology into the curriculum in a way that engages, supports, and inspires all learners and that’s what we do here at STEAMwhiz  – CREATE + INNOVATE + SOLVE!

Get Started and Jump In

Getting started is easy thanks to great free tools specifically designed for kids! We highly recommend TinkerCAD as a great entry point into to start thinking and designing in 3 dimensions. Even better you can take these creations and send them to us to 3D print for you =D 
 
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STEAMwhiz, Physical Computing, & Raspberry Pi’s, Oh My!!

STEAMwhiz

We are gearing up to reach more early education students across the good ol’ US of A in the latter half of 2022 (stay tuned). Our mission is to empower more students with the knowledge to become innovative problem solvers that will prepare them for their future, not our past. Our Co-founder and Program Director Allie and I have worked at all levels of the nation’s education system, from public school teachers to curriculum developers at National Laboratories to doing fundamental research at the highest levels of science in America to working at Fortune 100 companies! We are creating both in-person labs and digital courses (coming Fall/Winter 2022) to pass this knowledge on to the up and coming generations. This means that we are not developing one-off projects but a deep curriculum for students rooted in (S)cience (T)ech (E)ngineering (A)rt (M)ath to provide the fundamental and technical acumen to become the innovative problem solvers of tomorrow. You might ask why STEAM? Well, we believe that these fields have a bright future that will not only provide excellent careers for young students but allow them to be creative in amazing ways and exploits their natural curiosity about the world around them. By tapping into their potential, as early as 6 years old, we believe they will be able to find solutions to the novel and difficult problems they will face in the future!

Physical Computing

An amazing development in the last decade or so is the accessibility of Physical Computing for young students! What is physical computing and why is it important? Well we know computing is related to computers right 😋 let’s give it a bit more of a formal definition

COMPUTING is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery.

Wikipeda

In other words, it’s the use of a computer to accomplish some goal or task. This typically resides inside of the computer in the virtual world. Some examples are creating a scientific model to predict the weather or writing a blog post like this one 😄

Now we add the word PHYSICAL to the term COMPUTING and we move out of the virtual-only world and interact with the physical ‘real’ world as well.

PHYSICAL COMPUTING involves interactive systems that can sense and respond to the world around them.

Wikipedia

Sometimes it’s easier to see than to read, so below are some fun examples from MIT Maker Resources for K-12 Educators.

This is basically at the heart of all our technology; bridging the human physical world with the virtual technological one! Now imagine the amazing creativity and ingenuity that the next generation of students can explore with these tools at their disposal, if we transform the when, what, and how we teach them!

Raspberry Pi’s

The GP (i.e. General Purpose) are the PINs used for physical Computing

Ok, so how does the Raspberry Pi fit into all of this? The Raspberry Pi is an amazingly powerful, little single-board computer that is relatively inexpensive for students to explore Physical Computing. What makes it different than any other computer? While it is a ‘normal’ computer that can be used to browse the internet, write a document, and code a program, it also has an amazing suite of programs geared for kids to explore computing! Moreover, it has special PINs called General Purpose Input Output PINs (aka GPIO PINs) that allow the Raspberry Pi to connect to sensors, lights, motors, actuators, buzzers, pumps, and so much more. It bridges the physical world into the virtual one like the videos above!

STEAMwhiz Pi

One challenge of the Raspberry Pi is that there is a barrier to entry that requires a certain level of technical understanding to really unlock its power. So what we have done at STEAMwhiz is create a wonderful plug and play solution for parents and students, which we call the STEAMwhiz Pi 😅

The STEAMwhiz Pi (pictured above) is basically an exact clone of what we use in our in-person labs, with a touch screen and the exact software configuration we use to teach our students throughout the academic year! This allows for our students to continue working & innovating at home well after they leave the lab. Bonus they can use it for their school work too, as it’s a full-blown desktop computer!

Isaac putting in the work at home and doing physical computing after lab!

Where is this all going? Well, while there are great tutorials online and fun project boxes, most are not really targeting early education & holistic curriculum development. So it is possible for some very driven students to learn, but it’s mostly geared toward an older audience through standalone disconnected projects. In Q3 & Q4 of 2022, we will begin the rollout of our STEAMwhiz app to deliver STEAM courses specifically targeting early education which will be a full-blown curriculum to provide our decades of experience to students across the country in a fun animated storybook fashion. The STEAMwhiz Pi is the first step so parents can just plug and play a system for their children to begin exploring the world of physical computing! You can learn more about the STEAMwhiz Pi here.

Getting Started in Physical Computing

In the meantime, while we roll out our STEAMwhiz app, we encourage our students and parents to check out the links below to get started in the world of physical computing and get those inquisitive minds working! Feel free to reach out if you have questions or comments and we will be happy to engage.

Python & Physical Computing

A nice tutorial to get started with Physical Computing and Python!
https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects/physical-computing/0

This tutorial introduces some basic electronic components and how to use a great coding language called Python to control LEDS, buzzers, and more! Python is ubiquitous in research and industry throughout the world and is an excellent first coding language to start out with.

Scratch & Physical Computing

A nice tutorial to get started with Scratch and Physical Computing
https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects/physical-computing-with-scratch

The tutorial above introduces physical computing using a drag and drop visual block coding language known as Scratch. If you are unfamiliar you can read more about it in our other post here. We recommend this for students who can read and write but are just starting to dip their toes into coding.

Once you have gone through the tutorials above you can check out more here fun projects from the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

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Moon Hunt #3 – Why is half the earth bright?

This is part 3 in the STEAMwhiz’s Moon Hunt Series. Before we understand the moon, we have to understand some basics about the earth. Here we explain why half the earth is bright. Make sure you check out the prior video and see if you can answer all the questions beforehand!

Click the YouTube button to subscribe and support us! If you really enjoyed please consider sharing and like the video.

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Moon Hunt (Jan 15th, 2021) – Questions #1

If you have had clear skies at night, I wonder have you been able to see the moon? Have you thought about what happens each day as you look up into the sky? What do you see? Here are a few more questions that might get some juices flowing 😉 We will follow up with some more content soon.

Click the YouTube button to subscribe and support us! If you really enjoyed please consider sharing and like the video.

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Moon Hunt (Jan 12th, 2021) – Activity #1

Overview

Over the next several weeks we will track how the moon orbits the earth. We will make keen observations, ask insightful questions, and learn together as the moon goes through its phases. It will be fun for the kids (maybe even adults) to understand the fascinating physics that happens every day and we may take for granted!

If you can, take pictures of what you see each night and you should have a nice montage of the phases of the moon!

Phases of the moon
(Image Source: https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-science/why-does-the-moons-appearance-change/)

Where’s the moon?

Do you think the moon is in the night sky every night? Maybe you think it comes above the horizon at night but it’s dimly lit, obscured by clouds, or only a tiny sliver showing making it hard to see? Tonight and over the next several nights, look to the south-southwest horizon at sunset and see if you can find it. If you can, take a peek several times throughout the day (look around the sun), at dusk/dawn, and at different times at night, and convince yourself you didn’t miss it. If you are in the Capital Region like us tonight will have some light cloud coverage but tomorrow night will be excellent to view the night sky.

Dusk – the transition from day to night. Peak twilight just after sunset before the night begins.
(Image Source: https://pxhere.com/en/photo/73648)

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STEAMwhiz Free Lab – Size, Scale & Filtration

Its Thanksgiving weekend and we want to thank our Capital District community for all the support!

Come join us if you are in the NY capital district Thanksgiving weekend. See the image for details.

Who is this for?


New students ages 7-11 from in NY’s capital district. Parents will get to see the lab and meet the ‘STEAM-team’.

What is it?


A free science lab where kids will explore how size & scale relate to mask filtration.We will be collecting non-perishable food items for @GuilderlandFoodPantry. We ask you to bring some food to donate, if you ‘can’  😉

To RSVP

Message us on fb.com/STEAMwhizNY or use the chat button in the bottom right corner of this page.

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A Great Day for Space and Humankind

“You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great – and that’s what being a spacefaring civilization is all about. It’s about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than the past. And I can’t think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars.” – Elon Musk

4 days ago history was made and it was awesome! SpaceX and NASA’S launch marked the start of the commercial crew era of U.S. human spaceflight and a return to American operated spacecraft. The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft launched from Kennedy Space Center on May 30, 2020, and docked 19 hours later with the ISS. NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station is a critical final flight test of the SpaceX crew transportation system.

I can’t believe it has been almost 10 years since the last American space shuttle was launched. Launches were tracked, watched in school, celebrated accomplishments, or mourned losses. Space was my thing! When the book, Apollo 13 was released, my friend and I had a competition to see who could finish it the fastest. I don’t quite remember who won that competition, but I do remember dreaming of becoming an astronaut. Even though my life path was turned in a different direction, I never stopped being awed by the greatness of space, space flight, and space exploration. Maybe my love from space came from living a short drive from Cape Canaveral and being able to witness rockets shooting to the stars. But I believe it is something much simpler, ingrained in all humans, uniting humanity together; the spirit of exploration! And this launch revived that spirit in me.

NASA, America’s space program, will continue to work with commercial companies like SpaceX and Boeing to design, build, test, and operate cost-effective human transportation systems to low-Earth orbit and eventually beyond. While this is an important mission, this is not what brought on tears and goose-bumps as I watched SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket the Crew Dragon spacecraft safely to the ISS with my young children. It was being able to witness the spirit of humanity working together and creating a “future better than the past” for my children and my children’s children. While STEAMwhiz is not physically launching astronauts into space (hmmm…maybe one day!), we hope our philosophy to inspire a love of learning and doing by making keen observations, asking insightful questions, and learning exciting stuff, will keep humans among the stars. We and all humankind are ready for the ‘Next Giant Leap!’