Abstract
Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education has been identified as a keystone teaching and learning area for developing students’ knowledge and skills on interdisciplinary critical thinking and problem solving (We use the term ‘interdisciplinary’ because discipline knowledge and methods were integrated from different disciplines in the project that used a synthesis of approaches). The position held by various government, industry and education stakeholders is that STEM learning, through different stages of education, will enable students to achieve their full potential. Underpinning this research was a response to an expressed school community need articulated through a primary school Principal’s desire to integrate STEM learning into the classroom. Consequently, three primary schools from the mid north coast and north coast regions, New South Wales (NSW), Australia were involved in this research. In particular, the project facilitated teacher professional learning through authentic teaching and learning experiences coupled with transferable teaching and assessment strategies for the classroom. The rural and remote settings of the schools was influential in the design of the program. The methodology drew on Technacy Genre Theory to frame the interdisciplinary learning domains: Science (hypothesis testing literacies); Technology (digital microscope and robotics literacies); Engineering (food systems and biotechnology literacies) and Mathematics (data collection and statistics literacies). The findings indicated the teachers benefited through the development of effective strategies that led to successful outcomes on interdisciplinary teaching and learning and built up their confidence, knowledge and skills involved in the implementation of a STEM program into their primary school classrooms.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge this work was undertaken on Gumbaynggirr country. A big thank you to the participating schools who brought significant enthusiasm to trial new ways of ‘doing, thinking and applying’ in their classrooms. Without your collaboration and commitment this project would not have been realized. Funding for this project was received by the Department of Education Communities Rural and Remote Education Networks
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Approval to carry out the research was sought through the Southern Cross University Expedited Ethics Committee (Approval number: ECN-17-133) and the State Education Research Applications Process (Approval number: SERAP2017159).
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Turner, A., Logan, M. & Wilks, J. Planting food sustainability thinking and practice through STEM in the garden. Int J Technol Des Educ 32, 1413–1439 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-021-09655-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-021-09655-9