Intersecting Art and Science in Basic Education

Biofilia - a laboratory for biological arts is located just next to Aalto University STEM lab, and as an art educator I am interested in making STEM into STEAM. My intention is to find possibilities to make art & science education more common in Finnish schools. This aim seems to be feasible now when the new guidelines for basic education in Finland became valid. There will be more research-based learning, as well as theme- and phenomenon-based courses in curricula. In art classes at schools we are not only educating would-be-artists but future art audiences as well. The problem is that art education is concentrating primarily on visuality. Visual cultures of science and art differ, though. To understand differences the key concept can be ‘multiliteracy’. In this text I connect practices done at Biofilia and Aalto STEM labs to scientific and artistic methods, and give some thoughts on their differences in approaching visuality.