Transformative STEAM Education for Sustainable Development

Book excerpt: We are currently experiencing an unprecedented era in the history of the planet. Our addiction to fossil fuels and powerful technologies is dangerously altering the Earth’s natural systems, giving rise to well-documented global crises of climate change, plastic pollution of the oceans, and tragic loss of biocultural diversity. These crises have created a unique challenge for STEM educators, given that STEM disciplinary knowledge and skills are often viewed as the panacea to the world’s economic and environmental problems. This popular view tends to focus narrowly, however, on students learning scientific, technological, engineering and mathematical concepts about the world out there, thereby ignoring the crucial role education must play in shaping students’ attitudes and values – their inner worlds – that drive moral agency to live and work in sustainable ways. It is moral agency that empowers socially and environmentally responsible citizens to tackle global crises. In this timely book you will read inspiring stories of how professional educators in STEM-related fields have embraced transformative learning and arts education to develop and implement integrated STEAM education programs and practices that are preparing young people with special capabilities and values to actively contribute to the sustainable development of a world in crisis.