The Importance of The Arts in STEAM Education

The arts in STEAM education are arguably the most significant feature of the framework. STEAM education, as a concept, emerged from the existing STEM initiative, which was originally designed to emphasize the academic subjects that teach the most important life skills, while also encouraging more integrated lessons. In comparing STEM vs. STEAM education, the key difference is that the latter recognizes the importance of the arts, whereas the former does not.

Read on to learn more about why the arts are so vital to a rounded education or visit our education solutions page for more insights into improving student outcomes. 

The idea behind STEAM education is to place a focus on five key areas—science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics—while also encouraging and integrating student engagement. The idea grew out of a concept known as STEM education, with the addition of the ‘A’ for the arts.

As we will cover in the next section, the arts in education are important because they include a wide range of different subjects and promote a variety of essential skills. Let’s take a closer look at what the arts are, their importance, and how they can be viewed within a STEAM context.

What Are the Arts?

The arts is a collective term, which is used to describe a range of different subject areas that are broadly considered to be artistic or otherwise creative in their nature. When the STEAM concept was originally created, the arts were divided into a number of sub-categories by Georgette Yakman, and these can be briefly summarized as follows:

• Fine Arts: The areas that are commonly covered by traditional art classes and based primarily on aesthetics, with examples including drawing, painting, sculpting, and photography.
• Language Arts: Arts that revolve around the use of language and which are concerned with communication, with some key examples including English, foreign languages, sign language, and creative writing.
• Physical Arts: Subjects and topics focused on physical activity, such as dance and sport.
• Manual Arts: Art-based subjects that are centered around physical skills and the manipulation of objects, with some of the main examples including architecture and landscape design.
• Liberal Arts: The broadest of the five sub-categories, covering some of the more typically academic subjects, with examples like philosophy, ethics, sociology, history, politics, civics, and theology.

The Importance of the Arts

It is worth taking the time to understand the importance of the arts in providing students with a rounded education. The subjects contained within this field are able to teach people the value of creativity, innovation, communication, and contemplation. In addition, the arts can help to provide individuals with a greater appreciation for culture.

The skills developed through the arts are often in high demand within the workforce, where creative solutions to problems may be needed and where different perspectives can be useful. The language arts are also vital for communication and, in the case of things like sign language, can help to provide people with greater accessibility.

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In many fields, artistry can be the difference between standing out from competitors or not, and this means those with skills in this area can be enormously beneficial for businesses and other organizations. Ingenuity is also needed across the board, and the skills and confidence to come up with ingenious ideas are often developed through the arts.

The Arts in STEAM Education

While the importance of the arts is clear, one of the big focuses of STEAM education is to facilitate integration. A good way to view this is via a quote from the late CEO and co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, who said the following:

“It is in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough – that it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our hearts sing.”

This quote essentially explains STEAM in action. Photography is another good example of an area where the arts clearly crosses over with the field of technology. After all, modern photography relies not only on a camera for capturing the images but also often on a computer and the right monitor for photo editing purposes. Much of photography is also concerned with images of the natural world, and this has a potential link to science and, in particular, biology.

Meanwhile, the manual arts are all about manipulating objects, and this has obvious cross-over potential with engineering, while lessons focused on technical drawing are a good way to combine the arts with mathematics. Once the links between the STEAM fields are understood, teaching in a more integrated way becomes much easier.

How to Implement Arts in STEAM Education

Integrating the arts into STEAM doesn’t require a major curriculum overhaul. Teachers can start by adding creative tasks to existing STEM lessons so students can explore concepts through both analysis and expression.

A few simple ways to introduce arts into STEAM lessons include:

• Asking students to sketch engineering ideas or diagram how a system works
• Creating infographics or visual explanations for scientific concepts
• Using storytelling, video, or presentations to explain research findings
• Designing prototypes that consider both functionality and visual design

Project-based learning is especially effective for STEAM integration. Students can build models, create multimedia explanations, or present their ideas visually while exploring scientific or technical concepts.

Interactive classroom tools can also support this process. For example, students might sketch ideas on a ViewBoard interactive display or collaborate on diagrams and presentations using their own device with whiteboarding software like myViewBoard. This helps them combine creativity with technical learning in a shared workspace.

Final Thoughts

STEAM education highlights the arts as one of its five fields and its inclusion is important. After all, the arts can help learners to develop the kind of creativity, ingenuity, communication, and performance skills that will assist them throughout their education, but also with employment opportunities too.

As a field, the arts is extremely broad and diverse, covering everything from painting and photography to dance, history, and architecture. This does, however, help teachers looking to integrate elements of the arts into their lessons.

In this series on STEAM education, we have now covered an introduction to the STEAM framework as well as the importance of science, technology, engineering, and the arts. Please feel free to also visit the ViewSonic education solutions page to read more about creating engaging lessons.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Arts in STEAM Education