The 11th annual San Diego Festival of Science and Engineering opened Saturday at Petco Park in downtown San Diego with artists included in the program. The festival is composed of a variety of activities, for both kids and adults, designed to inspire excitement about STEM learning.
"Art teaches how to connect the dots. It teaches how to look at the big picture. How to put all the parts and what they mean together," said Linda Sheridan of the San Diego Cultural Arts Alliance.
"So, if you put this into a science industry, you can put in data all day long, but if you can't get to what the significance of the meaning is of the parts then your just pumping out data," Sheridan said.
Liisa Bozinovic, executive director of the Biocom Institute, made the case for including art in the San Diego STEM festival in a recent opinion article. She described how creativity is a right-brain skill and how it is worthwhile to cultivate for the purpose of solving problems that don’t have clear cut methods.
Sara Pagano is the managing director for the festival.
"In San Diego, we have a growing hub here for innovation. We have a ton of scientific companies who are doing amazing things that are coming out of San Diego but making an impact globally. So what we're doing down here at Petco Park is showcasing all of our companies and how they're making an impact, and how our students can follow the path through science to be apart of those companies," Pagano said.
The festival is a week-long event with a variety of activities in different locations around San Diego. More information about can be found on this website: http://lovestemsd.org
