Integrating the STEAM Approach into School Ecology Projects: An Effort to Foster Students' Creativity and Scientific Literacy

Abstract

Rapid changes in the digital era and the escalating global environmental crisis require education systems to transform from merely transferring knowledge to developing critical thinking skills, creativity, and scientific literacy. One relevant approach to addressing this challenge is STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics), which integrates multiple disciplines within a project-based learning context. Integrating the STEAM approach into school ecology projects allows students to engage directly with environmental phenomena around them through observation, experimentation, simple technological innovations, and meaningful artistic expression. This model not only fosters scientific understanding and ecological awareness but also strengthens higher-order thinking skills such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. In its implementation, the success of STEAM integration depends heavily on teacher preparedness, the availability of simple learning resources, and collaborative support between schools, communities, and higher education institutions. Assessment in this model also focuses on the learning process and product, not solely on test results. The research on "Integrating the STEAM Approach into School Ecology Projects" is significant because it offers contextual solutions to the low scientific literacy and creativity of students in Indonesia. The results are expected to provide an empirical contribution to the development of an adaptive, creative, and sustainable ecological learning model, as well as being a practical reference for schools in building a culture of scientific literacy and environmental awareness from an early age.