STEAM That Speaks: Using the Arts to Solve Real-World Problems

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Susan 

Well, hello, Sally. It's so great to see you today.

Sally 

Thank you, Susan. I'm happy to be here.

Susan 

Wonderful. So for those who may not be familiar with you and your work, although shame on them if they are not, can you let us know a bit about your current role and how you got to this point in your career?

Sally 

Sure, well it's nice to talk to you about this today and this is one of my favorite stories to tell. So I'm Sally. I am currently the STEAM program specialist for the state of Georgia. So I work for the Georgia DOE and I think what I do is I manage STEAM schools and help with STEM schools across the state. Georgia is one of a handful of states that has a certification process for schools through the state and we have a small team that manages all of that and I do most of the STEAM schools and assist with STEM. So I feel like STEAM is in my blood and I come by it honestly. My dad was a university professor in music and he was a musician. He played trombone with some amazing musicians like Elvis and The Temptations, mean big names and started the jazz program here at our local university which has grown to you know, national renown. then, so I definitely grew up with a music loving family. And then my mom was an extraordinary teacher. She started out as an elementary math teacher and rose to school leadership and then district leadership. She won national awards for her dissertations. And I mean, she was an incredible teacher.

And little did I know that dinner table conversations that I had as a kid would spawn me into a STEAM girl. So my mom, she's passed away now, both my parents are passed away, but my mom way before STEM or STEAM was a word, I think in the early 90s, established our first magnet school here in our district as the SMART magnet, which is science, math, art, reading and technology.

And actually now that school is a STEM certified school and they are working towards STEAM within the next year or so. So I love going to visit that school. So I feel like I come by honestly that I had an educator mom and a musician dad who, and both of them are huge advocates for arts integration and arts, sorry, arts education. And so it makes sense that I'm an integration person. And through my career,

I've had kind of one foot in education. So my undergraduate degree is in education and was a high school teacher for about 10 years. And then my another foot is in the arts world, worked for arts nonprofits and arts organizations. And, you know, when I did my MFA, my work around my research was around science education using the arts. So, I mean, little did I know that I would end up in STEAM, but

It's what my brain has been working on, I think, my entire life.

Susan 

Yeah, yeah, incredible. So I'm curious, and these are, this may seem silly, but I've never asked this of you before. And for those of you who don't know, like Sally and I have known each other for what, almost three years now. And we talk all the time. So, but I don't know that I've ever asked this question. So are you a fan of jazz since your father was so involved in that realm or do you not like it at all because you listen to it so often?

Sally

That's a funny question. So I am a fan of some jazz. A lot of it is nostalgic for me just because I miss my dad, know, so listening to it and there were certainly pieces that his jazz band always played and we'd have family jokes about. So it warms my heart to hear those pieces. I'm a huge fan of jazz vocals and I love vocal jazz.

But my brother, also my brother is musician and accomplished performer and composer and my sister started out as a teacher. again, you know, we are all in the same. So my brother, you know, sometimes will introduce us to a piece of jazz and I'm like, that's not really for me. Because I think within jazz, there's all of the different kinds of genres within, many genres within jazz.

Susan

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting because I was never a jazz person at all, mostly because I'm scared of the improvisation aspect of it. I need so much control that that improv worries me. But as I've gotten older, I've become much more appreciative of jazz music. And I think it's really interesting just studying the neuroscience behind what jazz music actually does to your brain.

My husband calls it brain floss that it actually it does it kind of does that so it's it's interesting to me I just just really curious so to try to get us back on track a little bit though your focus is steam well you know we talked about neural things with with music there and that fits into the world of steam so let's dive into that a little bit deeper because that is your focus is around STEAM education and STEAM certification. You've really expanded the STEAM certification effort in Georgia. I have had multiple arts education colleagues, national colleagues tell me, you you want STEAM, you go to Georgia. That's Sally territory. Like they know you and they know the STEAM program because of how you've expanded the work in that. So

Congratulations on that, first of all. Yeah, well, it's true though. And so I'm curious, let's start with what is your definition around STEAM because we know that there are so many out there and lots of different ways of looking at it. So what's your definition, what's the state of Georgia's definition around STEAM and how does STEAM certification work in the state of Georgia?

Sally (06:01.244)

Thank you, that's very kind.

Well, think STEAM is one of those things that if you Google meaning of STEAM and you get 100 results, you get 100 different definitions. But I really appreciate the intentional way that Georgia has moved towards defining STEAM. So STEAM is an interdisciplinary approach. It's a methodology, it's a pedagogy. It's not a separate class. It's not an add-on thing. It's not one more thing. It's the way you do the thing. So STEAM is…

It's a whole mindset shift away from the kind of silo teaching to an interdisciplinary approach. So you're using the subjects of science, technology, engineering, arts, and math, and very often ELA and social studies or foreign language or PE or whatever you're doing, whatever you're talking about, to look at the natural overlaps of those interdisciplinary connections. But what makes it STEAM is the problem solving process.

STEM and STEAM are all about solving problems. So in Georgia, STEAM is using all of that interdisciplinary learning to help solve or contribute to a solution of a real world problem in the community. So we're not solving the water crisis in Africa, though that's a wonderful problem to solve, but we want students to be able to see authentically how their work and their research and their innovative solutions have helped accomplish something in their community. So we have students working on all kinds of problems in Georgia. We have clean energy and water quality and environmental shifts due to our footprint in the environment. So we have one school that's working on repopulating a certain species of trout in the river behind their school or lots of schools work on bird populations for the areas that are growing so quickly in Georgia that when we eliminate the woods, we eliminate those bird habitats. We have students working on all kinds of entrepreneurial new products. I mean, all kinds of things. And it is really humbling to be able to really talk to students what they're working on because they're so knowledgeable.

So part of STEAM in Georgia is also working with community partners so that not only are we helping those community partners in whatever they're working on, that those community partners are informing students' processes so that students have a clear idea of, number one, what careers exist in their community besides doctor, teacher, lawyer, nurse.

But then also where the current field is. And we know that STEAM is an incredible workforce development tool. you know, we don't know what the jobs are going to be in the next five or 10 years. I have a 14 year old and an eight year old. Certainly the 14 year old will be in a job that that will look different than it looks right now, or even if it exists, but certainly for the eight year old. So we can't we can't predict what knowledge or processes will be in jobs that we can predict what skills people are going to need. So that flexibility, the collaboration, the risk taking, the iterative processes, all of those are inherent to STEAM. And we know from the World Economic Forum, I mean, we know from everybody saying that those are the skills that are going to be most important going into jobs in the next decade or two.

Susan 

Yeah, 100%. So I'm going to ask a clarifying question because you shared some wonderful examples of real-time project-based learning that's happening within your schools that sounds very science-based, which is awesome. I know that there's also other areas that are focused. What's the difference between a STEM project-based learning initiative and a STEAM PBL focus in Georgia? What distinguishes the two?

Sally

That's a great question, thank you. So STEAM means, obviously, where the addition of the A for the arts is that arts are a necessary element of the solution of the problem. So when I think about STEM and STEAM, you know, we think about science as the phenomenon. science explains the world, what happens around us.

And we use math to measure that. We talk about how deep, how wide, how often, what's the probability, all of those things. the math helps us explain the science. But then if you think about why we engage in the arts, why you go see a movie or why you listen to a symphony or why that song is your favorite song or why you look at a piece of visual art, it's because the artist is communicating something to us. So in the STEAM world, we're using the arts as a communication tool to change an audience. So very often in STEAM, the questions that they are researching or the projects they're working on have to do with the change in people's behavior or advocating for an awareness. So a STEM question might be, you know, a project might be around repopulating that species of trout.

But then a steam question, if they wanted to shift that to steam, they could do as much of the same research, but it would be advocating for that species to be protected as part of the river system that it belongs in. So advocating means or educating, sharing, all of those verbs really mean about changing people's behavior and having people reflect on their own behavior and questioning, what I'm doing is that helping or hurting the species of trout and students can help figure out the ways that they can educate the population to do that.

Susan 

Okay, so I'm going to ask a follow-up question around the arts component of this because I know, I do know that the way that Georgia implements STEAM is through standards-based connections and that the arts area must be an integral part as you shared, that it needs to stand on equal footing, right? That we are not using that in service of, but that it is essential to, yeah?

When you were talking about the arts being a communication tool, was thinking that the arts provide a way for us to have a language around what we want to share, right? But so does math. Math also provides a language for us to understand a concept. So when you say that the arts are the communication tool or the communication vehicle, how do…

How does that look in enabling the arts to have an integral part to that? Are you saying that it's not that you can't communicate the project outside of the arts themselves? I'm a little unclear on that. If you could just clarify, that would be awesome.

Sally 

Sure, and that's so funny that you talked about language because I've had several colleagues that say about me that one of my best skills in this job is being a translator. So it's really like thinking about the scientific language, mathematical language, the arts language is how they work together. So yes, I mean, you can publish a chart of data and say, here's the information, but will that help?

Will that be the most effective way of communicating a change of behavior? No. So the arts are essential in that they are helping translate that information into a human story, into a, almost into a narrative. So one of the projects I really love too is we have a school that's working on issues with erosion and flooding behind their school.

And what they've done is they've engaged with the National Citizen Science Project and they are using photography for over time of showing a series of images in different weather patterns that can show literally how the erosion changes. But you have to have a high level of skill of photography in order to do that. You have to understand aperture and… all of the photography skills that I don't have. They have to understand it in a certain way, therefore achieving all of those art standards. But you couldn't do that without photography. I mean, you could say this is the amount of erosion that took place, but in order to advocate for there to be change, it has to be translated into a human story because the humans are the people who are gonna make that change based on whatever they're doing that's causing the erosion.

Susan 

Yeah, and I could also see, I'm going to just step in for a second, that within that, you could also look at how photography changes. The difference between digital photography, analog photography, like when we had, you know, salt, when we were using salt to be able to bring photography to life, how does time impact an image? If looking at erosion, we could also look at the erosion of photography, both literally, and maybe even figuratively over as we're diving into AI, right, and the patterns that change in that mechanism as well. I think there's an opportunity there to go even deeper than just the narrative, right?

Sally)

Right. Yeah, so the best STEAM projects are the ones, of course, this is a long-term problem. So elementary schools in Georgia, they usually take an entire year for the exploration of a PBL. It's different in middle and high school just because of scheduling and high school scheduling is a bugaboo for everybody. But, you know, the idea is as you are learning the math over the course of the year and you're learning the science over the course of the year, you're also gaining those technology skills and you're learning the photography or whatever art form you're using to help communicate the issue or communicate, know, advocate for whatever you're talking about so that they are learning step by step. So it's not something that's tacked on at the end. It's not, you know, we do a STEM project and then we have a really pretty PowerPoint because that's just arts and that's arts enhancement. You're not learning the skills of the arts by making a pretty PowerPoint or Canva or whatever.

Susan 

Right, right, exactly. Well, I hope that everybody has really liked this conversation of going back and forth about diving into STEAM and what it is and how Georgia has been implementing it because you and I have a wonderful announcement, I think. I'm hoping we cross fingers that everybody else thinks so as well. I am so excited to share that as of January 1st of 2026, Sally will be stepping into my role currently as CEO of the Institute for Arts Integration in STEAM and bringing her wealth of knowledge and experience in both the nonprofit, the for-profit, the school system sector, all of her experiences that she has shared previously and her incredible expertise around STEAM to the Institute as the new CEO. And so Sally, I just want to be the first person to say congratulations. This is really, really exciting and I cannot wait for you to step into this role.

Sally 

Thank you. I am humbled and thrilled and excited and nervous and, you know, all of those things. And I think that those are all the right feelings to have about this kind of path forward.

Susan 

Yeah, absolutely. I always, in this show, I always like to step into the role of the listener and who's probably listening and what questions that they would naturally have coming out of their mouth right now. Right? So the probably the first question is what I'm going to do. Right? And so I'm going to answer that question and I'm going to flip our roles a little bit and I'm going to allow you to ask some questions that you think that the audience would want to know. And then we'll go, we'll, we'll pivot back and forth a little bit.

So in terms of my role, and I'm still the founder of the Institute, so I'm still sticking around. I'm not going anywhere in particular. Like I'm not running off to the races and, you know, not having anything to do with it. I'm just stepping out of the CEO role for at this point. As many people know, I have written a new book, which looks very excited about Creativity's Edge, and it's coming out in February, February 19th. Please go pre-order, please.

Sally 

Mine's already pre-ordered, Susan. Mine's already pre-ordered.

Susan

I'm so excited. And so I will be spending, I really want to dedicate a good amount of time to getting the word out about that, having those conversations. It's really important to me that in this world of AI that's constantly changing, that we advocate for the importance of creativity, both in our schools and in our lives. And so I want to spark a national dialogue about that and spend some time doing that. I've also had the privilege of starting a new nonprofit called The Craft. And so I will be spending a lot of time on The Craft. The Craft will actually work with the Institute on quite a few things, including our upcoming national conference. The Craft is all about research and disseminating that research in modern ways, like through podcast series and documentaries, taking it out of the traditional journals and putting it into the actual hands of people who need it. And so we're going to be focused on that.

And I'm still going to be supporting the Institute from with a marketing standpoint, getting words out there. You'll still see my face on Instagram and Facebook occasionally and supporting Sally and the rest of the team as they transition into this new phase. So that's my plans, at least for 2026. We'll see what happens from there. Sally, I'm going let you ask any questions that you like.

Sally

All right, so Susan, why now? Why is this the right time?

Susan

Good question. I've been working and I've started this in 2009 as a blog. It moved into a full business in 2014. So right now we're on year 11 moving into year 12. And lots of things have happened for me in that realm. So I've gone from being in the classroom, being at a district level to running an organization nationally and internationally while my child grew up and it was awesome to be able to be with her and still be able to do this at the same time. She's now moving off to college. We'll be, we don't know where she's attending yet, but we're, we know she will be somewhere come the fall of next year. And so I will have more time to dedicate to some other projects that I've really been wanting to dig into. And I haven't been able to because I've been steadily building the Institute and the Institute is now at a spot where I think contributed as much as I can and it needs the next phase. It needs to grow outside of what I can offer it. And so that's why I'm really excited that you're here. I think you bring so many gifts and talents that I just do not have, which I'm so grateful for because this you are what this organization needs in order to grow to what it can do. Yeah. Yeah.

Sally 

So tell me the thing that you're most excited about with Craft, because this is a whole new venture for you.

Susan 

Yeah, so the craps, you know, it's my first time going into a nonprofit. I've always, you my dad was an entrepreneur. My mom's been an entrepreneur. I've always been in the for-profit realm. I know that world really, really well. Nonprofit is very new to me and I'm excited for some of those challenges. I also feel like I'm a very mission driven person.

You know, I've made this joke before that our accountant often says, you really should be a nonprofit as the Institute. But beyond that, think for the, me, you know, I've sat in a lot of national conversations around why, if we know that arts integration, STEAM, project-based learning, like these things work, why is this not in every single school net? If we know that they increase student achievement, they keep teachers longer.

It leads to so much better outcomes. Why is not everybody doing this? And more and more I'm seeing it's because people don't either don't know the research, don't have time to look at the research, or don't know how to apply it. And in our fast-paced world, let's just be honest, nobody's sitting down to read a journal unless you're a nerd about it, right? Or unless you really want to know something specifically but everybody's listening to podcasts. Everybody's doing documents, looking at documentaries. Everybody is media centered. And so I think research needs to come out from behind the shelves where it's been stuck. It should still go there. Trust me. I'm not saying that we shouldn't have research based journals. Absolutely. We should, we should also have ways to disseminate that in, in ways that people can apply it right away and start to see those results.

Sally 

Sorry to interrupt, but you're saying that we want to use the arts to help communicate research? We're applying what we know about good educational practice to our educational practice.

Susan

Exactly, exactly. It's doing the things that we know are best for our schools, right? So it's just shifting a little bit of how we look at that. So I'm going to pivot and ask you the same two questions. Why now? Why step into the CEO role now? And what are you most excited about about the Institute?

Sally 

Actually, the timing was surprised to me. And I did not expect this when you and I started chatting about, you know, that we enjoy working together and what might this look like in the future. I did not have it on my bingo card to be moving to this role. But honestly, years ago in 2015-16, I started an arts integration professional development program here in Georgia.

And I fangirled all over the Institute's resources and really it helped shape and clarify a lot of the work that I was doing here in Georgia. And thousands of teachers now in the Southeast region have benefited from that work. And then certainly with the schools now here, you know, with DOE too. But why now? I feel like I would be fine in this job for the next couple of years. I feel like I've done a good job here. I feel like I've served schools well and I love the people and love the schools that I work with. That's the hardest part of leaving this job. But gosh, what an opportunity to imagine farther and imagine more and hopefully be able to translate the same benefits that students in Georgia are having on a national and international scale.

You know, ultimately, I want to build on what the incredible work that you've done of making the institute the go to resource network for schools, K-12 schools and organizations seeking arts integration and STEAM training. Absolutely. And none of that is going to change. But I do think there are ways that I have some skills around STEAM that I've

I've learned so much about science and math education, my goodness. But it's been a great learning process that I feel like I can lend some of that to the Institute now and then also strengthen the national network around STEAM. STEAM is a relatively new idea and we are just now starting to have some conversations through Education Commission of the States and other organizations that are really looking at what does this mean nationwide to hopefully affect some policy and make the, you talked about the fast pace of our culture, help us know how and when to slow that down or where to shift our focus to what really works for students.

And we know it works for students, right? We know that arts integration in STEAM is the best way to learn. when we graduate from high school, we don't stop learning. So I would be interested in looking at the way the arts integration and kind of this problem solving process of STEAM can serve organizations outside of the K-12 sphere. So we know that

Sally 

We know that it works when we have all of the the neural arts research, all of the way that our brain lights up, the way that creativity engages our brain for a different kind of workflow and thinking of things that are not necessarily arts based or science based or math based, but but in a way that we think more clearly and and more with more breath and more creativity and more innovatively. So I'm just so excited. I'm intimidated, but I have a wonderful mentor who said, if you're not a little bit scared of it, it's not worth doing. And I've kind of accepted that and lived by that philosophy for my whole life. So I think when we're scared of it means that we respect it and that we want to acknowledge what has been done before and then also look to a broader future.

Susan 

Yeah, I'm excited to see where you take it. I think with your unique skill set and as well as the background that you bring and quite honestly, the love that you have for the programs, I feel like they're in very safe hands. Everything that I've done before, but also I'm excited to see you just kind of take it and stretch it. It's kind of like, I'm… thinking of it like Play-Doh, like you're just gonna take it and see how far you can stretch it in different directions while keeping tight to the core mission and vision of what we've set in the past. So I'm just really excited for what's to come. I cannot wait to collaborate with you come January and beyond. I cannot believe that we're almost out of time already, but that's, I know.

Sally

Wow, yes.

Susan 

It goes fast, doesn't it? It really does. But with that said, I would love for if people had questions either for you about either stepping into this new role or STEAM in Georgia or beyond, what are ways that they can get in touch with you?

Sally 

Because we're doing the shift soon, probably the best way is through LinkedIn, which I'm just Sally on LinkedIn. And then also, y'all have a brand new very fancy email address, which is sally at artsintegration.com. And I just opened the email for the first time yesterday and was poking around. So it's exciting to have that to have an onboarding, you know, start that onboarding process.

So please feel free to email or LinkedIn me. am also, one thing I didn't mention is I'm so excited to work for the team that works with the Arts Integration of the Institute as well. It's just a dynamic group of creative thinkers and teachers and people who love children. And I'm excited to join that group too.

Susan

Yeah, we can't wait. So it's going to be an adventure, everybody. You got to stay tuned. I guarantee you this is not the last time that you will see Sally on this show. So thank you so much, Sally, for joining me today. I really appreciate it. And I can't wait to see what's next.

Sally 

I'm excited and honored. Thank you, Susan.

 

Sally on LinkedIn

Sally's brand new very fancy email address: sally@artsintegration.com