The first event I’m highlighting is the Curiosity Collider Cafe’s Nov. 22, 2017 event in Vancouver (Canada), from a November 14, 2017 announcement received via email,

Art, science, & neuroscience. Visualizing/sonifying particle collisions. Colors from nature. Sci-art career adventure. Our #ColliderCafe is a space for artists, scientists, makers, and anyone interested in art+science.

Meet, discover, connect, create. Are you curious?

Join us at “Collider Cafe: Art. Science. Interwoven.” to explore how art and science intersect in the exploration of curiosity.

When: 8:00pm on Wednesday, November 22, 2017.

Doors open at 7:30pm.

Where: Café Deux Soleils.. 2096 Commercial Drive, Vancouver, BC (Google Map).

Cost: $5-10 (sliding scale) cover at the door.

Proceeds will be used to cover the cost of running this event, and to fund future Curiosity Collider events.

With speakers:

Caitlin Ffrench (painter, writer, and textile artist) – Colours from Nature

Claudia Krebs (neuroanatomy professor) – Does the brain really differentiate between science and art?

Derek Tan (photographer, illustrator, and multimedia designer) – Design for Science: How I Got My Job E

Eli York (neuroscience researcher) – Imaging the brain’s immune system

Leó Stefánsson (multimedia artist) – Experiencing Data: Visualizing and Sonifying Particle Collisions

Follow updates on twitter via @ccollider or #ColliderCafe.

Head to the Facebook event page – let us know you are coming and share this event with others!

Then in Toronto, there’s the ArtSci Salon with an event about what they claim is one of the hottest topics today: STEAM. For the uninitiated, the acronym is for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics which some hope will supersede STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). Regardless, here’s more from a November 13, 2017 Art/Sci Salon announcement received via email,

The ArtSci Salon presents:

What does A stand for in STEAM?

Date: December 1, 2017

Time: 5:30-7:30 pm

Location: The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences
222 College Street, Toronto, ON

Please, RSVP here
http://bit.ly/2zH8nrN

Grouping four broadly defined disciplinary clusters –– Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics –– STEM has come to stand for governments’ and institutions’ attempt to champion ambitious programs geared towards excellence and innovation while providing hopeful students with “useful” education leading to “real jobs”. But in recent years education advocates have reiterated the crucial role of the arts in achieving such excellence. A has been added to STEM…

But what does A stand for in STEAM? What is its role? and how is it interpreted by those involved in STEM education, by arts practitioners and educators and by science communicators? It turns out that A has different roles, meanings, applications, interpretations…

Please, join us for an intriguing discussion on STEAM education and STEAM approaches. Our guests represent different experiences, backgrounds and areas of research. Your participation will make their contributions even richer

With:

Linda Duvall (Visual and Media Artist)

Richard Lachman (Associate Professor, RTA School of Media, Ryerson University)

Jan McMillin (Teacher/Librarian, Queen Victoria P.S.)

Jenn Stroud Rossmann (Professor, Mechanical Engineering – Lafayette College)

Lauren Williams (Special Collections Librarian – Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library

Bios

Linda Duvall is a Saskatoon-based visual artist whose work exists at the intersection of collaboration, performance and conversation. Her hybrid practice addresses recurring themes of connection to place, grief and loss, and the many meanings of exclusion and absence.

Richard Lachman directs the Zone Learning network of incubators for Ryerson University, Research Development for the Faculty of Communication and Design, and the Experiential Media Institute. His research interests include transmedia storytelling, digital documentaries, augmented/locative/VR experiences, mixed realities, and collaborative design thinking.

Jan McMillin is a Teacher Librarian at the TDSB. Over the last 3 years she has led a team to organize a S.T.E.A.M. Conference for approximately 180 Intermediate students from Queen Victoria P.S. and Parkdale Public. The purpose of the conference is to inspire these young people and to show them what they can also aspire to. Queen Victoria has a history of promoting the Arts in Education and so the conference was also partly to expand the notion of STEM to incorporate the Arts and creativity

Jenn Stroud Rossmann is a professor of mechanical engineering at Lafayette College. Her research interests include cardiovascular and respiratory fluid mechanics and interdiscplinary pedagogies. She co-authored an innovative textbook, Introduction to Engineering Mechanics: A Continuum Approach (CRC Press, Second Edition, 2015), and writes the essay series “An Engineer Reads a Novel” for Public Books. She is also a fiction writer whose work (in such journals as Cheap Pop, Literary Orphans, Tahoma Literary Review) has earned several Pushcart Prize nominations and other honors; her first novel is forthcoming in Fall 2018 from 7.13 Books.

Lauren Williams is Special Collections Librarian in the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library. Lauren is a graduate of the University of Toronto iSchool, where she specialized in Library and Information Science and participated in the Book History and Print Culture Collaborative Program.

Enjoy!