Recontextualizing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education through Chemistry: A Pathway to Global Sustainable Development

Abstract

Science education research in recent times has reported students’ involvement and engagement in scientific inquiry, discovery and exploration. In particular, studies have shown that in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education, learners are afforded the opportunity to understand the world around them and proffer appropriate solutions to many of the societal problems facing humans and society at large. Thus, this call for the recognition of STEM education as an 'economic driver' has motivated its inclusion in the school curriculum framework worldwide, both in developed and developing nations. This is based on the premise that effective STEM education is a vehicle for developing in students the much-desired 21st-century competencies towards the attainment of sustainable global development. However, despite the importance of STEM education for sustainable global development, its curriculum implementation in many countries of the world still remains ineffective and a great challenge to educators' lack of a cohesive understanding of how STEM education informs classroom practices. This paper therefore presents the potential of chemistry as a sub-set of STEM education with its various innovative teaching approaches through which nations could engage in achieving a successful sustainable global development for the 21st century.