Rural environment is suffering from serious problems, as reflected in the term “Empty Spain”. One of these problems is the pronounced depopulation that rural areas suffer in our time, so creating links with the land thanks to education is of great interest for, among other things, establishing population in rural areas. Interdisciplinary education becomes relevant today as the necessary education in our current world capable of providing answers and solutions to the social demands of our time. Interdisciplinary STEM education had the United States of America as its cradle in the 1990s; later it passed to the acronym STEAM when the Arts were later introduced, this is how you find a true interdisciplinary education. Since 2010, government policies have been developed in the USA, highlighting the Educate to Innovate program and in that same country the STEM4SD Education program, which develops education for sustainability by creating links with the local population. Precisely, this article will collect the educational policies that have been carried out in the USA for the development of this type of education. In this article and thanks to the analysis of certain programs, the importance of interdisciplinary STEM and STEAM education in our days will be exposed for the promotion of sustainability directed towards sustainable development, thereby creating more sustainable societies made up of more sustainable citizens, highlighting the importance of education for sustainability through STEM and STEAM education creating links with the land for the improvement of the rural world, which means establishing population, among other aspects.

Interdisciplinary STEM and STEAM education gives us the opportunity for training students to achieve all educational objectives in a sustainable development framework. Land in a rural area is a scenario with a range of educational resources for the development of STEM and STEAM projects to train students to interact with the rural environment. The possibilities of the land in order to prepare students for the needs of today’s world are linked and sensitized to the environment. In this article, we will offer contemporary examples of STEM and STEAM projects that have been carried out in Latin America. These projects are being developed in which young people establish links with their environment, territory, and the local environment surrounding them. We must look carefully at projects and works in which students’ ties to their land and environment are valued through the STEM and STEAM education necessary today. In this scenario, a comparison has been made between the projects in Latin American countries and Spain.

This article provides the research community with a conceptual framework from a historical perspective of the impulse of education sustainability in the official international literature. In addition, the United Nations International Conferences held on Japanese territory in order to foster education for risk reduction and for training resilient individuals and communities are analyzed. The study of the content of both approaches, education for sustainability and education for risk reduction, constitute an innovative approach especially relevant after the pandemic caused by the COVID-19 crisis. The article advances with a historical analysis of the use of the concept of resilience in the European Institutions’ official documents. Our findings show that it is particular after 2015 when resilience is linked to sustainability. Before this, the European approach was mostly linked to food crises and emergencies. The article offers a synthesis of the global and European approaches in tables so that we can compare the progress in the United Nations discourse and the European Union one. In this conceptual framework, we offer a contribution to the debate for European national education systems. In particular, we offer contribute to the debate of the Organic Law LOMLOE approved in Spain in 2020, in which education for sustainability is strongly considered but not so much resilience education. The article intends to contribute to the inclusion of resilience as an element of the curriculum linked to the education for sustainability.

Rural Spain has strengths but also presents notable problems. Education is a necessary way to improve rural communities. A better educated population will ensure they do not disappear and enhance their quality of life. This article explores the educational potential of rural Spain by focusing on a practical case study at the Grouped Rural School (CRA) Las Cogotas in Ávila, Castilla and León. It highlights the strengths and challenges of rural areas, including depopulation, aging, and lack of services, and emphasizes the importance of education in addressing these issues. The study implements STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) education through outdoor activities, utilizing local rural and natural resources to enhance students’ learning experiences and foster environmental stewardship. The methodology includes structured interviews and a Likert scale survey analyzed with the ATLAS.ti tool to evaluate the effectiveness of the activities. The results indicate that students developed a stronger connection to their environment and showed increased interest in STEAM subjects. The findings underscore the value of integrating rural resources into formal education to improve the quality of life and sustainability of rural communities. The article aims to highlight the educational resources that rural areas offer to develop STEAM education.