Advancing elementary and middle school STEM education

Navigating the current STEM agendas and debates is complex and challenging. Perspectives on the nature of STEM education and how it should be implemented without losing discipline integrity, approaches to incorporating the arts (STEAM), and how equity in access to STEM education can be increased are just a few of the many issues faced by researchers and educators. There are no straightforward answers. Opinions on how STEM education should be advanced vary across school contexts, curricula, and political arenas. This position paper addresses five core issues: (a) perspectives on STEM education; (b) approaches to STEM integration; (c) STEM discipline representation, (d) equity in access to STEM education, and (e) extending STEM to STEAM. A number of pedagogical affordances inherent in integrated STEM activities are examined, with the integration of modeling and engineering design presented as an example of how such learning affordances can be capitalized on