A note about terminology is increasingly relevant. STEM education may be appropriately termed STEAM for the added emphasis on the Arts and Humanities. Most liberal Western democracies enjoy the arts education in the public schools to varying degrees, an emphasis that is somewhat variable or lacking in most developing societies; as the arts, humanities and broadly social sciences are seen as softer disciplines they invariably attract much less public and private investments. In hopes to reclaim the pinnacle in science and technology leadership, which the US and EU have enjoyed for decades if not for the past two-three centuries, the application of STEAM curriculum in some adaptive form has become a mainstay in American and European schools. As Asian countries in the Pacific have begun to liberalize their economies and dominate in the fields of science, technology and computing in the past two-three decades, there has been a parallel decline in science and math scores in the US and EU and an increase in high school drop-out rates in public schools. There are many reasons for this decline: breakdown of the family, urban blight, relative lack of investment in education, shifts in jobs and industries, the rise of information technology, and many others. The emphasis on arts and humanities may serve as the bridge to the discussions on sustainability within the STEAM fields. As a common complaint heard from many educators, STEAM does not fully incorporate the arts and humanities at the heart of the liberal arts educational program. Since STEAM education is focused on literate societies that are already economically developed and advanced, the calls for arts and humanities are of different kinds from many educators around the world. Mostly, in the EU and US where the educational standards have been somewhat challenged, the arts and humanities educators don’t want to jettison the liberal spirit of their local cultures. Among other factors this is in reaction to the rise of Asia, where the Asian tigers have been ramping up the training in sciences and technology, and fighting to gain and protect intellectual property (IP) values. Conversely, in most of the underdeveloped world, where we still struggle to fight for literacy – reading, writing and numeracy – STEAM needs to incorporate the STREAM curriculum with the added emphasis on the “R” for reading and writing.
Published in Chapter:
STEAM and Sustainability: Lessons From the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Dinesh Sharma (Steam Works Studio, LLC, USA), Bob Eng (Advisors for Good, USA), and Amartya Sharma (George Washington University, USA)
Copyright: © 2022
|Pages: 18
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-3861-9.ch018
Abstract
The educational challenge of sustainability remains unexplored in the development of children in the K-12 curriculum in the United States and potentially in the educational curriculum of many of the member states of the United Nations. Using a case study method, this chapter shows how sustainability can be an educational value and a public good, transmitted to students through everyday instruction. By conducting a regional analysis in specific cultural groupings, using fieldwork and applied research methodology, students can demonstrate competence for sustainable education on a whole host of issues relevant for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 2030). With younger age groups consisting of students in middle and elementary school, the chapter examines an activity-based approach for socializing young children to issues of sustainability and preparing them for what is known as “the fourth industrial revolution.” Finally, it is imperative that corporations adopt a socially responsible approach towards investing that is environmentally conscious of long-term governance impact.