The Milpitas Districtwide STEAM Showcase focuses on giving students of all grades across the district a way to be excited about science, technology, engineering, arts, and math, Milpitas Community Education Foundation founder Robert Jung said.
Something unique about the showcase is that it is not a competition, STEAM showcase consultant and retired MUSD educator Karen Muska said.
“We don’t have first, second, or third place,” Muska said. “It’s about showing learning and showing progress.”
Students see projects at the showcase, and the ideas from these projects will trickle back to the schools, Muska said.
“(A part) of the showcase is showcasing progress and what students learned,” Muksa said. “Some of it is scattering those little seeds and programs a little more widely.”
The STEAM showcase is more of a technical showcase focused on technology, Jung said. There is a requirement to integrate at least one additional category of STEAM into projects with the arts, he added.
“And that is how the industry is looking at it too,” Jung said. “There are a lot of technical aspects that try to make products more attractive to various customers, and they use various pieces of art or ideas from art to try to do that. That’s what we’re trying to highlight.”
Requiring students to include one additional area of STEAM into projects with the arts helps them find a connection between technology and art, Muska said.
“I don’t know how you do art without science, technology, or math,” Muska said. “If it’s perspective, perspective is math. Ratios involve looking at nature. There are sometimes artificial divisions between those areas of study.”
Since the showcase first started 11 years ago, the size of the showcase has significantly changed, Jung said.
“When we first started, there were maybe 50 kids who participated,” Jung said. “This year well over 750 kids participated.”
The physical capacity for the showcase has been reached over the last few years, Jung said. The showcase has turned away students who want to participate in the showcase in person, he added.
“We can fit around 150 projects on campus,” Jung said. “We do have a virtual option where we take all submitted projects and put them online.”
The showcase already takes up the gym, library, and cafeteria on campus, Jung said.
“Unless there is a way to expand the areas, it is unlikely that we can take any more folks in person,” Jung said. “We have thought about (expanding the areas) and maybe spreading this (the showcase) out over a couple of days, but unfortunately, the logistics are very difficult.”
The showcase tries to provide every school in MUSD equal representation, Jung said.
“We collect the total number of projects at each school site and provide that to the principal and the science teachers (working on the showcase),” Jung said. “We tell them roughly the number of projects they can have per school, and they work their way to whittle down the number that will be presented in person.”
MUSD being in the Silicon Valley has definitely encouraged the growth of the showcase, Jung said. More and more parents care that their kids are getting into STEM, and STEM careers, he added.
“This is a good entryway,” Jung said. “This program is a good entryway for kids who just want to get excited about it without worrying about the competition; that’s the main piece.”