The value of integrated STEM may be clear, but how do we do it? Below, we outline a number of strategies to support integrated STEM teaching and learning. They are to identify a disciplinary emphasis, making integration explicit, ensuring sufficient attention to each discipline, identifying the level of integration, and determine the scope.

Identify a disciplinary emphasis

Identify an anchoring discipline, which may translate in practice to identifying an anchoring standard. For our integrated STEM projects, we found that science was often a strong candidate for the anchoring standard because it’s a domain rich with content to connect to the other domains. We can read about and use math to understand phenomenon related to weather (Earth science), to gravity (physical science), or to hibernation (life science). However, math can also be the anchoring standard (See project example in the math chapter). The important message here is to choose one dominant standard around which the rest of the project will orbit.

Make integration explicit

Be sure to tell students that they will be engaging in an integrated STEM experience. It is not always clear to students that what is happening is integrated. Note this warning from the NRC report:

“Observations in a number of STEM settings show that integration across representations and materials, as well as over the arc of multi-day units, is not spontaneously made by students and therefore cannot be assumed to take place. This highlights the importance of designing integrated experiences that provide intentional and explicit support for students to build knowledge and skill both within the disciplines and across disciplines. In many integrated STEM experiences, such supports are missing or only implicitly embedded within the classroom activities or the CAD software, measurement instruments, and computational tools used in the classroom.”

(p. 5: NRC, 2014)

Say things like, “We will be doing an experience today where we will get to be mathematicians and scientists! We’ll be using measurement (math) to figure out how tall our plants grew in the closet versus on the windowsill (life science experiment).”

Ensure sufficient attention to each discipline

As noted above, students’ understanding and skills in each of the individual disciplines in S.T. E., and M. – as well as other domains involved, like English Language Arts or ELA – must be supported and appreciated on their own. In early math, for example, research suggests that children benefit most when they have both experiences focused on a specific math goal, and experiences in which they find math all around them, in their play, and across the day. Young learners benefit from explicit attention paid to math, such as a small group focused on cardinality with concrete objects. Trying to integrate everything, all the time does not necessarily lead to better learning (NRC, 2014).

Identify the Level of integration

Take a look back at the levels of integration shown in Figure 2. Note that not all content lends itself to integration. If it does, consider the extent to which integration can occur. When thinking about a unit or project that will involve meaningful, deep, integrated STEM, be clear on your learning objectives, which standards you are trying to meet, and the big ideas in math or science. You might have a topic to explore that comes from a current issue in the news, state or national standards, or from your students. Once you have a big idea or theme, then, figure out how you might integrate meaningfully: how can students use a math concept in service of understanding a scientific phenomenon? See more in the Example Project below.

Determine the Scope

Determining the scope of the integrative project is part of the planning process. As a teacher, your district or center may require you to plan in a certain way. Sometimes, that involves submitting lesson plans for each day and each week; other times, planning may involve showing that your classroom experiences align directly with the district’s chosen curriculum. Whatever your requirements are, we want you to think about the science and integrated STEM experiences of your future students in terms of how they will be 1) long-term, with repeated opportunities for students to engage meaningfully with content, and 2) allowing for room for inquiry or the science practices.

Below we describe one “product,” which is a Unit Plan, and that might be used to plan out integrated STEM activities in a Pre-K through 5th grade classroom. Early childhood programs in which the authors taught used a Unit Plan as the major assignment. It included 2 weeks of learning experiences that must integrate a variety of areas with the focal science standard. Pre-service teachers created a calendar, at least 10 separate learning experiences across the 10 days that have clear learning goals and that follow the 5Es lesson planning template.

Make it your own. As pre-service teachers, you may or may not have a choice for a given course or for your future classrooms. Once you are teachers in your own classrooms, we want you to have a variety of approaches at your disposal. Whatever method or “product” you choose to engage your learners in integrated STEM, we want you to see the 5Es and the other frameworks and guidance discussed here as a roadmap to guide your curriculum and planning efforts.