Science Turns into ART at the Sheldon Museum of ART (START SMART) is an outreach program envisioned and developed by our group and organized and led by our undergraduate students. It aims to foster curiosity and engagement of high school juniors and seniors, and their parents and teachers via inspiring the creation of art from physical principles with the ultimate goal of encouraging education and careers in STEM fields. The experiential learning will demystify physics and corresponding mathematical equations in order to help increase the enrollment in physical sciences courses, which nation-wide has been declining in recent years.
Since 2024, we have offered every February workshops to learn about physical principles, complete hands-on art projects, and model what is seen through the use of mathematics. We have also provided an inside perspective on why you should choose physics and its relevance today.
START SMART has been supported by the National Science Foundation under grant no. 2203933 and the UNL CAS research impact and engagement grants: START SMART(er).