Arts and crafts as adjuncts to STEM education to foster creativity in gifted and talented students

Studies have found little correlation between creativity and being gifted or talented, but do show that creative people are more broadly trained, have more avocational interests, and display more ability in these interests than the average person. In the sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, the avocational interests of the most successful professionals are unusually likely to involve fine arts such as painting or music; literary accomplishments; or crafts such as woodworking and metalworking, mechanics and electronics. Four types of evidence are brought together in this review to explore why such avocations might stimulate the creative capacity of STEM professionals. First, STEM professionals themselves argue that beyond verbal and mathematical skill, success requires a vivid visual and spatial imagination; hand-eye coordination and manipulative ability; skill with making and interpreting models; and a highly developed aesthetic or artistic sensibility. Second, controlled statistical studies of large groups (hundreds to thousands) of STEM professionals reveal strong correlations between artistic, musical, literary and crafts activities and measures of success in STEM subjects such as Nobel Prizes, numbers of patents or companies founded. Third, STEM professionals involved in these statistical studies themselves can describe specific ways in which their avocations stimulate their vocational successes. And fourth, many of these specific stimuli (such as improved observational and visual thinking skills, manipulative skills and tool use, and improved learning and retention strategies) also improve STEM learning in well-controlled classroom trials. The knowledge and skills required to be professionally creative are, in short, learnable.