Public education likes alphabet soup
By Terry Murry on Wednesday, November 29th, 2023 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
PENDLETON – Educators love acronyms. InterMountain Education Service District Superintendent Mark Mulvihill translates three so the public can know what’s up. First, there’s STEM, which stands for science, technology, energy, and mathematics.
“It is an effort to really focus on building programs along those elements, and a lot of it is trying to include girls who traditionally haven’t gone that route,” he said.
Then, educators added a letter to STEM and STEAM was born.
“STEAM is adding art to it,” he said. “That’s just a typical education thing – let’s just throw another letter in there and then we have another acronym.”
Mulvihill isn’t finished with the alphabet soup yet.
“The point of STEM and STEAM is trying to develop programs like CTE programs – there’s another acronym – career tech programs,” he said. “It’s a wide gamut across the board with those two terms.”
