The first email I opened this morning notified me I’d just put a little more STEAM into the world.

An ecology play I’d written some years back had been licensed by a science teacher at Our Lady Help of Christians School in Victoria, Australia. Using class students as performers, “Home Sweet Biome” guides discussion about ecosystems and human impact on natural environments — something students are as keen to learn about in the Southern Hemisphere as well as ours.

While unlikely to ever reach Broadway, “Home Sweet Biome” is one of hundred or so dramatic pieces I’ve devised to help K-12 teachers around the world use basic theater techniques to implement their STEM curriculum.

STEM is the subject concentration combining science, technology, engineering and math. There’s growing consensus among educators in many disciplines that adding the letter A for arts (STEAM) boosts the academic results of ordinary STEM programs by employing multiple art forms to present information, solve problems and foster the creativity of young scientists-in-training.

One of the most profound concepts to have emerged in educational philosophy during the last decade is the realization that there are multiple yet equally valid ways people learn new information. Based on their own unique experiences, frames of reference, prior knowledge and cognitive skills, individuals possess different “intelligences” and will absorb instruction differently.

Some people learn more easily by visual reference, others by focusing on auditory cues. Some learn best by reading and rote memorization, others by hands-on doing. It has become clear that, along the daily journey of acquiring knowledge, there are many paths to the same goal.

The challenge for today’s educator at any grade level is to prepare an interactive and collaborative classroom environment that can accommodate students’ varying “learning intelligences.” Theater, with its inherent capacity to tap and synthesize a wide range of skills and expressive modes, is a highly effective way to achieve this goal.

I’ve been creating educational theater for K-12 classrooms since the early 1990s, covering history, civics, grammar, geography, math, life and earth science, career development, technology and social studies. I’ve yet to encounter any subject that can’t be imaginatively enhanced with drama-infused learning exercises that increase comprehension and, in turn, stimulate creativity among students.

A recent industry report estimated that by 2025, the U.S. will need to fill 3.5 million STEM-based manufacturing jobs to remain economically competitive … and that 2 million may go unfilled, chiefly because K-12 educators do not have the resources to sustain student commitment to the rigors of STEM studies.

Educational theater can help; it’s an elastic and inclusive medium offering students a firm starting structure along with the freedom to reshape that structure into a wholly new learning experience. Unlike the annual school play that involves a small number of students for a few weeks, curriculum-based theater is a tool that can be used every day, in every class, with every student participating.

For teachers, classroom plays are a great way of imparting basic knowledge to students, then inspiring them to discover more on their own.

And for kids, can there really be any better way to learn the metric system than by playing a Dancing Decigram?

Lawrence McCullough, Ph.D., is a Pittsburgh arts curriculum consultant with a specialty in educational theater (www.educationalclassroomplays.com).

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