Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics or "STEM" focused pedagogy has been influenced changes in education for decades. Responding to the need for interdisciplinary skilled workforces, the STEM approach has been revised firstly to reflect the incorporation of Arts, (STEAM) and, more recently, to place stronger emphasis on cross-disciplinary connections. However, there is little empirical evidence to drive the development of a practical model for classroom implementation. This systematic review aims to consolidate existing empirical evidence on the incorporation of interdisciplinary learning via a STEM/STEAM approach in high-school environments using a PRISMA review scaffolding. The review identified ninety-nine articles that addressed interdisciplinary learning. However, the majority of them were excluded due to the lack of empirical evidence for such improvements, resulting in only eleven studies being included in the final synthesis. This suggests that more research is required prior to wide-scale implementation within high school education systems. Of those that met the selection criteria, the overarching theme was that improved outcomes were best achieved via either a real-world project-based or problem-based learning pedagogy with the use of community and industry support. However, due to the low number of studies found to fit the criteria, it is recommended that further research is conducted to provide greater empirical evidence to support this finding.

Recently, the chemistry education community has focused considerable effort on incorporating systems thinking into chemistry education as a means to address global challenges such as sustainability. In this project, a series of exploratory workshops was held with secondary educators (N = 12) and tertiary educators and researchers (N = 16), introducing the participants to systems thinking in chemistry education (STICE). Following the workshops, small group semi-structured interviews were conducted to obtain deeper insight into how participants perceived systems thinking in relation to their teaching and research practice. Inductive analysis identified five major themes shared across both cohorts, relating to the perceived affordances and challenges of implementing systems thinking in chemistry education. The paper discusses these themes in relation to curriculum reform efforts, specifically with respect to pre-conditions needed for successful implementation in order to achieve the benefits of systems thinking in the classroom. We propose a possible pathway to realise these advantages.