Karen Kackley and Eileen Grodziak hosted the SCI-MidAtlantic regional meeting at Penn State Lehigh Valley on October 29. The focus of the meeting was “SENCER: STEM and the ARTS,” with exciting presentations by professors across multiple institutions and departments. Jonathan Kieter, Assistant Professor of Mathematics at East Stroudsburg University, presented on “Anamorphic Art and Mathematics,” a public art project where a deliberately distorted image can be perceived as “normal” when viewed from one and only one viewing spot.
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Jorge Santiago-Blay of Penn State York presented his integrated approach “The Humanities, Including the Arts, and Social Sciences in the Teaching and Learning of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM): Exploring this Ecotone and Proposing an Explicitly Inclusive Approach (ISTEM)” with highlights of STEM-Arts projects from his own courses and colleagues.
Ella Braden of Bryn Mawr College sparked a great deal of dialogue and discussion with her “STEM and Arts” mini-course. Karen Kackley and Eileen Grodziak invited brainstorming around a new course, “Coffee,” as a focus for an integrated biology, culture and political science “travel” course, with additional ideas for connections to mathematics, physics, and astronomy from Dan Jackson and Todd Retzlaff of PSU-LV.