The integration of the arts and humanities into the core of curriculum along with the sciences and technological disciplines is an emerging issue in educational research. This article seeks to contribute to this research and curricular approach, for which we analyze the emergence of the STEAM movement, its implementation in class, and its social, economic, and educational consequences. The main conclusion reached is that, without ignoring the economic rationality in education, it is necessary to go further in order to embrace a more social and democratic conception of schooling, trying to take advantage of this historical moment to transform education toward a more humanistic approach–without neglecting the scientific facet–that offers a well-rounded education to new generations while, at the same time, responds to the social and economic demands of our current world.

The emergence of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) in research and the practice of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education is today an unquestionable fact at international level. Despite the importance attached to STEM education, there is a lack of synthesized approaches to teaching the interdisciplinarity of STEM. This lack of synthesis can hinder a strong theoretical foundation for STEM education and possible new contributions. The purpose of this position paper is to contribute a theoretical framework for STEM education that enables the unification of criteria regarding disciplinary integration and associated teaching methods. The authors discuss disciplinary integration in STEM activities, the implication of STEM literacy, educational stage, and teaching method, and provide suggestions for future research.

El presente trabajo trata de dilucidar las posibles relaciones entre dos movimientos educativos de indudable relevancia en la Didáctica de las Ciencias Experimentales a lo largo de las últimas décadas, uno de ellos más pionero, conocido como Ciencia-Tecnología-Sociedad (CTS) y otro más reciente, Ciencia-Tecnología-Ingeniería-Matemáticas (STEM). Para ello partimos de una concreción de sus orígenes, objetivos, características, líneas de trabajo y propuestas didácticas en cada uno de ellos. A continuación, nuevamente apoyados en una revisión bibliográfica, establecemos las comparaciones entre ambos a partir de los apartados referidos anteriormente. Tal comparación nos lleva a poner en cuestión la vinculación entre ambos y la originalidad de la propuesta STEM, junto con las dificultades que su implementación conlleva.

Existe un consenso generalizado en cuanto a los beneficios pedagógicos que el aprendizaje basado en proyectos (ABP) puede producir entre el alumnado; por ello dicha metodología se presenta como susceptible de ser utilizada como herramienta para generar una mejora de la conciencia ambiental de los estudiantes de Secundaria. La presente experiencia tiene como objetivo principal analizar la efectividad del ABP en este sentido. Para ello, se diseñó e implementó un proyecto ambiental para 4.º de Educación Secundaria Obligatoria y se aplicó un pretest y un postest para analizar la evolución de la conciencia ambiental del alumnado tras la aplicación del proyecto. Dicho proyecto se desarrolló de forma adecuada, se generaron productos finales satisfactorios y se observó una mejora en los niveles de conciencia ambiental del alumnado tras su finalización.

Given the progressive loss of influence for the school relative to television in youngsters’ everyday lives, this article describes the procedure and the results of including cartoons in the physics curriculum in secondary education. Work was carried out intensively with a small group of pupils and sporadically with a larger group. In the first case, cartoons were used for identifying and discussing fictitious phenomena, problem‐solving, and assessment of the learning. In the second case, for identifying and discussing fictitious phenomena, a quasi‐experimental research design was followed. The results back the use of this didactic tool as an element for motivating and invigorating the classroom, for identifying the pupils’ alternative ideas and the assessment of their learning, as well as for a more critical way of watching television.

The ethnomathematical perspective implies substantial epistemological changes in mathematics conception with respect to the positivist tradition. This research focuses on a workshop for pre-service teachers, designed and developed under the ethnomathematical perspective, and which promotes reflection on the nature of mathematical knowledge. To that end, we analyzed the teachers’ answers about the nature of the mathematics described after the participation in this workshop. First, we identified some characteristic approaches of mathematics from the ethnomathematical perspective - the practical, social, and cultural approaches - and then used them to analyze the participants’ observations, which are considered as evidence of their conceptions about the nature of mathematical knowledge. Later, we grouped participants in profiles defined in relation to the incorporation of mathematics approaches according to Ethnomathematics. In conclusion, the workshop is shown as an environment conducive to reflection.