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opportunities to learn soft skills from an artistic approach and hard skills “in terms of programming and under- standing components of science and how they all kind of play together whether we’re talking about culinary arts from an art perspective or from a science perspective because food and coloring is much of a science exper- iment as it is an artistic showcase,” according to Patcasso.
Although it may not be perceptible, “we learn a lot about engineering through art, the arts have kind of helped us to understand how people use and why people use technology,” he added.
It’s his own unique approach, and sometimes Patcasso likes to paint his paintings upside down and what he’s really doing is incorporating what he’s learned as an engineer, like reverse en- gineering. He rebuilds them in a way that’s upside down, like the one he
did of Steve Harvey, which he present- ed to the celebrity comedian on the “Steve” show this past October.
STEAM, not to be confused with STEM (Science, Technology, Engi- neering and Mathematics) has a collaborative and creative output. It introduces more creativity as a struc- tured approach, which is also similar to the gifted and talented education technique, Think Like A Disciplinarian (TLAD), that makes learning more engaging and relevant for students, combined with depth and complexity icons that promotes critical thinking.
Gary Simms Sr., a senior technology strategy consultant at Wells Fargo also does work with Patcasso and agrees that students need to be asked ques- tions about their interests and abilities in order for them to realize where their
Steve Harvey takes in his likeness as Patrick Hunter unveils his portrait on set of Harvey’s daytime talk show.
passion lies when integrating science and technology. Like Patcasso, Simms is committed to getting more girls and women involved in STEAM programs and is confident that “STEA M is every- thing.”
“STEAM is every girl, and STEAM is the cornerstone of our future endeav- ors," Simms said.
Experts estimate that almost 2.4 million STEM-related jobs remain un- filled with women and people of color being deeply underrepresented in the STEM workforce.
Simms has a need to diversify the STEM pool, so he used art as a bridge to create a program called Introduce A Girl to STEAM to show the value of STEAM and art that’s currently in the design phase.
It’s in its fifth year and will have 500 girls and their mothers making it a total of 1,000 people in the program. Simms writes technology strategy and incorpo- rates a lot of pictorials, visuals, graphics, arts and when teaching students in
middle, high schoolers and college. He also includes a lot of music into
things he does, like jazz, opera or hip-hop to get the students moving, but with a bigger purpose. He might present a lecture to address the need to understand algebra, and trigonometry to show the inter-relationship with the number of beats per minute in a song.
It helps students to understand that “even music has a rhythm and a rhythm hasabeatandabeathasacount,sowe do things like that to demonstrate how the arts tie into science, technology, engineering and math,” Simms said.
Much of what Patcasso, and Simms do is for a greater future and it is proven through their work, passion projects and philanthropic efforts. All Simms wants to provide is “a little bit of hope.”
That’s his mantra.
“I can’t save the world, but I can in- still just a little bit of hope in someone to make them know there is a chance the world can be just a little bit better,” he said.
TECHNOLOGY AND ART
HARLEM FINE ARTS SHOW MAGAZINE PAGE 23