STEM is a well-known acronym describing the intersections of science, technology, engineering, and math. Emerging from this paradigm is a relatively new interdisciplinary model entitled STEAM. STEAM endeavors to intersperse "the arts" into the sciences with the expectation of increasing student engagement and skills within the sciences. STEAM asserts that the arts will increase student interest in science and increase creativity and innovative skill sets. STEAM today is broad and, in some ways, nebulous about methods, teacher education, and outcomes. Interestingly, the integration of the arts with the sciences has always existed. Biology is considered the most visual of the sciences. Historically it has relied on the skill set of observation, experimentation, and (less-acknowledged) drawing. Many scientists, who have contributed to the foundations of biology and medicine, were also artists. The drawing methods employed by these pioneers of biology have been overlooked in history and rarely considered a methodology for research or educational practices related to complex biological topics such as evolution. Could the historical interdisciplinary skill set of scientist-artists of the past suggest a way forward to develop methods to add "the arts" into STEM in a teachable and transformative way? In this thesis, I present a historical framework, with five case studies of artist-biologists and their experimentally informed, factually established methods of the artist-biologist synthesis. I outline the discoveries and the art processes in these five case studies as part of a comprehensive and flexible, domain-specific, and skill-based STEAM variation known as "BioSTEAM." I have extracted and modified the historical methods and adapted them for delivering the arts with biological knowledge to the modern biology classroom in an active, teacher-directed synthesis. The BioSTEAM framework is presented through its primary skill-set of what I call the "drawing heuristic." I developed the drawing heuristic from classical drawing techniques as they specifically apply to biological systems. These drawing-teaching techniques were developed to be quantifiable and teachable. The BioSTEAM framework is compared and examined against other similar STEAM efforts. To reveal the drawing discovery process's potential, the development of the drawing heuristic and BioSTEAM framework resulted in four BioSTEAM drawing-heuristic lesson plans published in four articles in the journal "American Biology Teacher." In these articles, the importance of the historical bio-art synthesis and the biology-based drawing skills are emphasized through the topic of evolution. The evolution-based narrative and the arts focus in these articles demonstrate the flexibility and necessity of both the drawing heuristic and the need for domain-specific content. Each article serves as an integrated synthesis of art and biology that is teacher-generated and encompasses the multi-faceted skill-based nature of my novel hypothesis for STEAM. The BioSTEAM framework and the drawing heuristic developed and proposed in this work were tested in an organismic biology lab where students are encouraged to do drawings under the microscope. In this experiment, which spans a full semester, the performance of a control group (little or no live drawing elucidations conducted) was compared against an experimental group in which the teacher demonstrates the drawing heuristic in biology in a live demonstration-lecture and in a narrative or storytelling way. Students' performance improved consistently, such that average scores from quizzes, mid-terms, and finals in "the arts" group were always higher, but they were only statistically significant sometimes. Interestingly, the variation of scores across studies in the arts group was always lower and statistically significant. Therefore, this quantitative research study illustrates the effects and benefits of historically developed biological synthesis-based drawing techniques and narrative delivery and their relationship to student performance. Implications of these findings and the limitations of in situ classroom experiments are discussed. In summary, I have constructed a drawing heuristic for BioSTEAM through a deconstructive analysis of the practices of five artist-scientists which defines STEAM processes in a biological domain-specific way. This formed the basis of four BioSTEAM educational articles and an experimental study, which illuminated a historically inspired introduction of the arts into STEM. In this literature analysis, the novel approaches of BioSTEAM can be revealed. Attention to biology-specific skill sets and teacher-directed performance, products, and processes are explained. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com.bibliotheek.ehb.be/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]