This article showcases STEM as an interdisciplinary field in which the disciplines strengthen and support each other (not as separate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines). The authors focus on an open-ended, complex problem—water quality—as the primary teaching and learning task. The participants, middle school female students (aged 9–15 years), interacted in an informal educational setting (i.e., Girl Scouts) on a research project investigating river quality following the river’s restoration. The community, including Girl Scout participants, leaders, parents, university faculty, graduate students, and others, utilized an action research (AR) approach when interacting with the participants. Methods such as observational field notes, focus groups, and collected artifacts were commonly employed. The authors describe the history of STEM and AR leading to authentic science research projects through eight engineering skills/practices (incorporating science, technology, and mathematics) and showcase participant interactions, implementation, and community engagement in the STEM water quality river project. Findings indicate that informal engineering based projects can serve as opportunities for participants to connect with integrated STEM. Implications include the need for engaging participants in informal authentic science to support traditional school STEM learning and encouraging community engagement in integrated STEM to support traditional K-12 classroom instruction.

The purpose of this study was to explore how undergraduate college students formed partnerships in informal educational teams to design and build an interdisciplinary, ill-defined, integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) project and translate it to lessons taught to a pre-collegiate student (e.g., K-12 in the US) audience. The authors pursued two research questions: (a) How does an authentic research project provide space for integrating STEM disciplines? (b) How does an authentic research project impact partnerships among team members? Nine undergraduate college students were accepted into the 2020 cohort, forming three teams of three undergraduates each. Teams were roughly composed of one engineering major, one science major, and one education major. Methods of data collection included interviews and field notes. Data were analyzed by assessing the level of partnership achieved based on an already established model. Results indicate that all teams progressed through pre-partnership to at least the partnership (little p) level. Two partnership dimensions achieved the highest (big P) level: one of perception of benefit and one of products and activities. The results have implications that integration of STEM disciplines and forming partnerships could be related, and that building teamwork skills results in products of higher quality. The results are linked to previous research and recommendations for more effective partnerships are provided.

The purpose of this study was to describe how US secondary science preservice teachers, or those preparing to teach middle and high school science, at one university, perceive engineering and teaching engineering within an epistemological framework of required domain components pre- and post-instruction (intervention) as well as over three cohort years. Their perceptions reveal relevant prior beliefs helpful for designing instruction to address an external need to prepare secondary science teachers to teach disciplinary content ideas, cross-cutting concepts, and science and engineering practices to meet the Next Generation Science Standards. Questionnaires administered pre- and post-instruction (intervention), as well as over three years, asked participants to decide whether various scenarios qualified as engineering and then to provide reasoning. Intervention instruction included whole-class discussions of engineering design practices. The responses to the questionnaire were analyzed for thematic content. The results indicate that the secondary science preservice teachers (n = 43) have a novice understanding of engineering and teaching engineering. They gain an emerging understanding during the secondary science methods courses, consistent in all three years with expanding perspectives from narrow discipline views. As their perceptions are refined, however, there are risks of oversimplification, which may lead to forming misconceptions. The recommendations for designing instruction such as secondary science methods courses and early career professional development include creating opportunities for preservice and early career teachers to explore and challenge their perceptions of engineering design practices integrated within science and engineering practices.

Teaching science concepts for conceptual understanding has its challenges. Bringing about conceptual change in the science classroom can be difficult because most concepts are complicated and often counter-intuitive in the teaching and learning of science concepts. A review of the literature indicates that the conceptual change model, CCM can be an effective teaching technique in addressing misconceptions and improving conceptual understanding when it comes to science instruction. The aim of this research was to find out the effect of the conceptual change model on pre-service teachers’ conceptual understanding regarding the topic of forces and motion. Using data from tests and questionnaires, the research questions were answered by quantitatively analyzing the collected data. The analysis revealed that there is a statistically significant correlation between the conceptual change model and the conceptual understanding of the pre-service teacher participants. Overall, the results provide evidence in support of the effectiveness of the conceptual change model, CCM in addressing misconceptions and promoting conceptual understanding of forces and motion among the pre-service teacher participants that volunteered for this research. The results also indicate that the CCM is a teaching model which must be considered by science educators and teachers as they seek to address issues related to misconceptions and conceptual understanding in the teaching of science topics. Keywords: conceptual change, conceptual change model, conceptual understanding, misconceptions, pre-service teachers, science education