STEAM+POP - The Science Behind Opera and Music

K-12 STEAM education

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative (testing or implementing a new idea)

While STEM-rich school curricula pave the way for specific career paths and important employment opportunities for LA County students, STEAM education models are more inclusive, versatile, and help develop more broadly applicable and valued skills. Recent initiatives such as Proposition 28 to improve equitable access to arts education are key to bolstering creativity, self-confidence, and cultural understanding amongst school children and their communities. With much arts education currently outsourced, and in an early phase of adoption in especially underserved areas, embracing STEAM education may seem a longer-term goal, or even unattainable to resident classroom teachers not well-resourced to deliver such specialized, hybrid instruction. The rapidly growing importance of collaborative and creative problem-solving skills in today's evolving STEM fields and in other career paths invites POP to accelerate our focus on in-class and extracurricular STEAM education programs.

Most high-quality STEAM education is currently located in magnet schools, tuition-based summer programs, and occasional workshops. STEAM+POP will be the first opera-forward STEAM learning program in LA, and will be 100% cost-free to schools and their students in historically marginalized and underserved communities. POP's four-week STEAM educational program runs one hour per week, with a curriculum aligned with the California Department of Education Next Generation Science Standards (CA NGSS) in Life Science and Physical Science. STEM-specific curriculum elements highlight the methods and properties of sound production and acoustics, including human physiognomy, and the mechanics of constructing a single pitch-producing instrument and participating in the performance of a simple, well-known opera song. Such hands-on exercises and applied STEM topics (opera lighting and sound design) point forward to career-related skills and pathways. STEAM+POP builds upon the success of POP's two 6-8 week opera education programs, which have supported 1,570 K-12 students since 2021. Teachers in 20 schools have come to value POP's opera education as highly engaging and accessible, benefiting their students in terms of their confidence in personal storytelling and expression at the core of opera. Nearly half of our schools re-enroll annually, and they are eager for a hybrid program such as STEAM+POP. In its pilot year, POP plans to serve 80-100 3rd-9th grade students in Title-I classrooms.

While students and teachers are accustomed to subject-specific curriculum, with benefits for delivery, STEAM education helps LA's youth perceive and participate in the generous interconnectedness of STEM, the ARTS and the potent role of creativity in real-world problem solving. The defunding of arts education has reduced understanding of the arts and their huge socio-economic value. POP's existing opera education programs reflect the socio-emotional learning and growth in self-confidence that results from students engaging with the personal storytelling dimension of opera. STEAM+POP enhances those outcomes, empowering the next generation as they envision meaningful social and economic pathways forward. By helping students make lateral connections and develop appreciation of integrated systems, STEAM+POP bolsters the relevance and value of that learning to their outside lives, with potential to improve motivation and retention/graduation rates during a critical period of disengagement.

All POP education programs include opportunities for formative and summative assessments. Program feedback is collected through anonymous surveys and small group discussion. C. 70% percent of participating schools request additional POP education programs, informing our development of STEAM+POP. STEAM+POP lessons will be observed/evaluated by a team of POP administrators, educators, parents/guardians and an outside quality consultant, who will advise the POP team on future iterations. POP's belief in STEAM+POP motivates our flexible four-class plan, which can be delivered individually or as a module, encouraging adoption by schools with little to-date access to arts education. The implementation of STEAM+POP in all 19 elementary school in Highland Park, the historically underserved neighborhood of POP's headquarters, would be a special marker of success. POP currently has strong ties with three of the schools, and our goal is to serve STEAM+POP education to all 19 by 2030.