Educational Makerspaces and Conceptual Art Projects Supporting STEAM Education

The integration of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) in K-12 education has been a priority for most countries around the world for the last decade. However, the intrinsic difficulty of mathematics and the sciences has limited the success of this integration. Educational Makerspaces have recently been identified as ideal environments for the successful integration of STEAM in the classroom. Educational Makerspaces promote learning as a group activity. This learning involves constructionism: designing and building artifacts. In addition, the inspiration and emotional support derived from working in a group provides the motivation to overcome the traditional obstacles found in STEAM projects. In this paper we present two workshops that are part of a research project to integrate STEAM and Educational Makerspaces in the university environment. The curriculum of the workshops is defined by the implementation of STEAM ideas derived from museum-quality Conceptual artworks. The design of these workshops is intended to be integrated in high schools and the education activities of art museums and libraries. This will have the effect of reinforcing the ties between these institutions.