CONNECTING THE DISCIPLINES
Education is full of acronyms and STEM has become one of the most frequently promoted in recent years. The purpose of STEM is to integrate instruction in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math into a coherent whole, rather than presenting each as a separate subject. The ideal is to avoid presenting STEM subjects as a menu of activities. Instead, it is to demonstrate to students that Science, Technology, Engineering and Math are a set of disciplines we use to help determine solutions to problems we encounter in the real world. Not every problem or issue can benefit from using STEM disciplines and ways of thinking and not all STEM-related problems use all STEM disciplines. When we add LA to STEM, we are suggesting that an integral part of the whole is to use reading, writing, speaking and listening. Problem-solving requires the use of language to identify the problems, to build background knowledge, to take in information from stake-holders, and to communicate possible solutions. It is important to find the right balance of all the possible disciplines and not force inclusion just for the sake of checking off each part of the acronym. The intent is to see LA STEM as a whole, not just the inclusion of each part.
An example may help explain how this is applied to curricular opportunities for students. This example comes from the book, Come Back Salmon (Cone, 1994). A class of students engaged with solving a problem with a stream behind their school. The stream had become clogged with debris and was unhealthy for fish. The students took on the problem of how to rehabilitate the stream. The curriculum that supported this long-term project required substantial science content--the students had to learn through reading, viewing and interviewing a great deal about salmon life cycle and migration. They learned some technology in understanding the equipment and processes needed to raise salmon eggs to fry. They worked with wildlife biologists to determine how to engineer the creek by physically removing barriers in the stream and helping the waterway become a healthy habitat. They had to communicate their results through speaking and writing. This unit could have included mathematics, but did not require it. As a result, a connected math strand was not selected.
In this example, there is a lot of language arts and science, some technology, a little bit of engineering thinking and almost no mathematics. It is still a LA STEM experience because we use the aspects of the disciplines needed and learn what is necessary to solve the problem in context. The more we avail students of the tools of LA STEM, the more they will be able to use the skills and knowledge in the future. In the example above, the teacher could have integrated mathematics more intentionally by having students measure and graph the growth of the fry as they reared fish or determined stream flow rates by measuring time and distance of a moving ball in the water. A decision to connect the disciplines in this way is appropriate, but must always be tested to determine its reasonableness.
Read more background theory here: STEM MAPPING.DOCX