Often, science and art are described as starkly different things. That narrative can start early on, with kids encouraged to pursue a STEM ' short for science, technology, engineering and math ' education that may or may not include an arts education. As a professor of acting, I'd never thought much about the STEM fields until I received a fellowship to integrate the arts into STEM educational models. I used the opportunity to write and direct a play for elementary schoolers that showed how the arts can improve upon and extend work in STEM fields when properly integrated ' but it wasn't an easy process. The origins of STEM education can be traced to as early as the Morrill Act of 1862, which promoted agricultural science and later engineering at land grant universities. In 2001, the National Science Foundation pushed a focus on STEM education in order to make the U.S. more competitive globally. A Biden-Harris initiative launched in December 2022 called You Belong in STEM offers...
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