THE STEAM APPROACH: PARTICIPATORY DESIGN IN A CITIZEN SCIENCE EXPERIENCE

Abstract

The creating of objects is an artistic and design activity that allows a work from diverse approaches and methodologies. Increasingly, we see proposals associated with an open knowledge society that incorporates multi-agent practices. This article presents and analyses a project, which under the STEAM approach, intersects the artistic and design dimension with the concept of citizen science, and in which, together with our students from the Degree in Product Design, numerous agents have intervened in the solution of the problem. In the introduction, the social and educational context for the intervention is placed. It continues with a theoretical review of the principles of an open and co-participated design in its overlapping with experiences of citizen science, pointing out some aspects in relation to the methodological approach. In the following section, the general objectives of the proposal in relation to the design of the artefact are pointed out, as well as its description. Finally, the results are detailed from a reflective framework and the coherence with the analyzed approach. Finally, some brief conclusions about the cognitive dimension that motivate this kind of proposals and their articulation around the methodology used are noted.