VERO BEACH — Challenged with merging the arts into science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, Indian River State College and the Vero Beach Museum of Art joined forces for a series of projects for teenagers.
Indian River County high school students who are dually enrolled at IRSC developed art projects linked to exhibits at the museum. For the fall 2013 project, the students created a digital photo display featuring the Indian River Lagoon.
This linked to the National Geographic Simply Beautiful photo exhibition at the Museum and promoted lagoon awareness in cooperation with the Indian River Land Trust.
The multi-faceted learning opportunities connect art, math, and science with a community service component and are developed as part of IRSC’s service learning initiative.
The collaboration dubbed “From STEM to STEAM: Putting the Arts in STEM was recognized with the Florida Campus Compact Partnership Award for an outstanding campus, community partnership that produces improvements in people’s lives while enhancing higher education.