PARALLEL
LINES OF
THOUGHT
Art Making and Scientific Investigations
BY MICHELLE GREEN ARNSON
Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education (CAPE) believes in the
power of visual art, music, theater, and dance, to engage
students, inspire teachers, and transform schools. Walk, jump,
or pirouette into a CAPE classroom and you’ll see students
using the arts to personalize, learn, and think critically about
subjects like science, technology, engineering, and math.
CAPE has been supporting this work for over 20 years, but
only recently did a concise acronym come along to both
describe and promote the value of integrating the arts in this
way: STEAM.
“The arts provide a special entry point for students otherwise
intimidated by STEM areas and inspire deeper engagement and
excitement for students and teachers alike.”
In every CAPE classroom, teachers, students, and
artists approach arts integration through a defined
artistic process: Inquire, Create, Document, Assess,
and Reflect, which parallels the scientific method:
Observe, Hypothesize, Experiment, Document, Analyze,
Draw Conclusions. These clear parallels make the