Crayons and felt tips at the ready?
We’re all invited to get scribbling, scrawling and sketching as part of the Big Draw initiative.
The national campaign aims to get people drawing – and make the case for putting the arts back onto the national curriculum alongside the STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering and maths as core subjects.
Participants will be given the challenge of drawing weird and wonderful technology and science-based contraptions that will all link together with a variety of hand-drawn conveyor belts to produce the letters STEAM at the end instead of STEM at the start.
The Big Draw gets under way on Wednesday with an event open to the public from 1pm to 4pm on the main footpath by the tennis courts at Greenhead Park.
Schools will take part in a Big Draw from 1pm to 4pm on October 12 outside Daisy Lane Books, Daisy Lane, Holmfirth, while private events have also been organised by Batley School of Art and Earlsheaton Infant School in Dewsbury.
Cliffe House at Lane Head Road, Shepley, will stage a public session from 10am to 3pm on October 28 – although booking is recommended. And the Big Draw closes with another public event from 10am to 4pm on October 29 at St George’s Square, Huddersfield.
All events will be led by Doctor Simpo using free materials sponsored by Kirklees Council.
He said: “In the post-modern world of work, employers are crying out for creative minds, people that can take initiative and develop new ideas. Forward thinking strategies are called for as supposed to redundant ways of thinking and working.
“As robots take over the most basic jobs and work their way up through middle management the future for the next generation is definitely skills-based. So we ask ourselves why ‘A’ is absent from STEM? Can our human drawers outmatch our robotic ones? Come along to one of our events and find out.”
The local campaign was launched at Huddersfield’s windswept Castle Hill by Kirklees Council arts and design in schools education officer Andrew Heath-Beesley; Natalie McSheffrey, events co-ordinator at Cliffe House in Shepley; Castle Hill ranger Julian Brown; robots from the Barnsley-based Yorkshire Robot Company and Doctor Simpo – alias Kirklees College creative arts tutor Ben Simpson.
