ABSTRACT
This book is about helping both educational researchers and practitioners identify emergent science, technology, engineering, arts (and architecture!), and mathematics (STEAM) in children’s constructive free play when they use visuospatial constructive play objects (VCPOs), such as play blocks, bricks, and planks. In Chapter 1, I discuss the unique and relatively lacking topic of the mutual and synergistic development of architectural thinking and the development of mapping and how they combine to demonstrate clear STEAM concepts. Important architectural and engineering terms that connect young children’s spontaneous STEAM concepts with the blueprints of architects and engineers follow. To this end, we learn about cartotecture, which is a portmanteau of the words “cartography” and “architecture.” In terms of child development, emergent mapping (Liben & Downs, 1989; Yuan, Uttal & Gentner, 2017) and architectural concepts (Ness, 2001; Ness & Farenga, 2007; Ness, Farenga & Garofalo, 2017) develop simultaneously and along the same lines. The chapter ends with a clarion call for the need to bring play back to the school and home.
