Unsung Heroes & STEAM

Session Description   

Explore the stories of Unsung Heroes from history using a STEAM framework and divergent thinking skills with your students. Participants investigate how logic and creativity overlap to generate innovative ideas and concepts for visual artmaking. This interactive session provides turn-key resources, arts-integration strategies, and creative approaches including the use of coloring books to strengthen mindfulness.

ARTEFFECT professional development online sessions are free to attend and will be recorded. All registered attendees will receive a recording of the session and lesson plan via email. PD certificate available for download. Attendance at this ARTEFFECT event is consent to its recording and distribution.

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Learning Outcomes   

In this session, you will:

1. Understand how STEAM disciplines intersect and complement each other in real-world applications.
2. Participate in hands-on activities applying scientific principles, technological tools, engineering design, artistic creativity, and mathematical reasoning.
3. Explore collaborative teamwork as an element in STEAM fields through problem-solving, sharing ideas, and communicating findings effectively.
4. Demonstrate creativity and innovation by developing unique solutions to problems, incorporating design elements into artworks, and practice critical thinking about the integration of various STEAM disciplines.
5. Support students in reflecting on their creative process, identifying challenges encountered, artistic decisions made, and the overall impact of their artwork on conveying the Unsung Hero's story.
6. Explore the use of symbolism and metaphor in artworks to convey the Unsung Hero's character traits, heroic act(s), and/or social impact.
7. Engage with Unsung Hero coloring book activities to stimulate cognitive development, encourage visual and color perception, and promote mindfulness and attention to detail.
8. Strengthen connections between visual art, science, and history/social studies.

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About the Instructor   

Jennifer Braverman 

Art Teacher, Maple Shade High School, Maple Shade, NJ

Jennifer Braverman is an artivist who combines education and visual art and actively engages her audience in contemporary issues. She is passionate about teaching and making the classroom a place for all students to thrive. Currently, she teaches AP Studio Art, Digital Mixed Media, and other courses to grades 7-12 at Maple Shade High School in NJ. Her art has been featured in solo and group exhibitions locally and nationally. She is an author and illustrator of four educational coloring books. She has been an adjunct in the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies department at The College of New Jersey since 2013, teaching Gender, Pop Culture, and LGBTQ Issues in K-12 Education. She has supervised over 50 independent projects in which students focus on social justice and education.

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Ms. Braverman was 2013 Burlington County Outstanding Woman of the Year in the Arts, and a member of the 2014 Inaugural Class of 40 under 40 for community leadership. She was also the 2016 Burlington County Teacher of the Year, the 2017 Moorestown-Masonic Lodge Teacher of the Year, and is a Certified Welcoming Schools National Facilitator for the Human Rights Campaign. In 2021, she was an LMC Fellow. To learn more, please visit: www.jenniferbraverman.com.