Putting the STEAM in the River: Potential Transformative Roles of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics in School District Culture, Organization, Systems, and Learning Environments

Abstract

School districts are simultaneously organizations, systems, communities, and learning environments. Their mission, vision, and goal-setting processes emerge from complex dynamics that ultimately manifest in the construction and reconstruction of learning environments where teachers and students learn. Inquiry, which is the core of science, the arts, and the other STEAM disciplines, is re-ascending now in the pedagogical intentions and methods of K-12 learning across the globe. Here, we describe Rio School District’s 5-year inquiry process through which it placed transdisciplinary, reflective teaching and learning perspectives and approaches at the core of the District’s mission, vision, and improvement processes. In this chapter, we describe the various domains of activity that connect transformative processes in classroom teaching, learning, and design. These activities ultimately link to a three-year process of designing and constructing a new K-8 STEAM school centering on transdisciplinary inquiry. This process to date has resulted, for example, in a state-of-the-art school site, currently under construction, that is closely tied to the geography and indigenous history of its location, and in a faculty, that is engaging in a yearlong process to co-construct transdisciplinary curriculum and instructional approaches for the Rio STEAM Academy. We will further show how the Academy reflects the broader District-wide transformative processes from which school has emerged.