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NSTA Recommends
Integrating Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics
by Leonie Rennie, Grady Venville, John Wallace
Price at time of review: $39.95
150 pp.
Routledge Taylor & Francis Group
New York, NY
2012
ISBN: 9780415897570
Grade Level: 1-8
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Reviewed by Daniel Kujawinski
adjunct professor
This timely text was first published in 2012 by an Australian and a Canadian author. It is one of six volumes in the series “Teaching and Learning In Science" edited by Norman G. Lederman. The authors write that it is a “comprehensive and cohesive volume” based on 15 years of research on two continents involving a number of colleagues working in elementary and middle school classrooms.
The book is organized into three sections: an introductory chapter that “provides a contextual overview of curriculum integration in STEM subjects;" a middle section that provides ten carefully–selected case stories relating different approaches to implementing curriculum integration in actual classroom settings; and a final section on implementation.
The final third of this text is its strongest and, in this reviewer’s opinion, most useful feature. Here the authors look for important themes supported by the literature, and suggest that “an effective means of facilitating curriculum integration is to incorporate important local issues into the classroom and curriculum and encourage students to connect these to larger, more global issues beyond the local community." A splendid summary of the case studies is presented succinctly but effectively in Table 12.1 “Summary of Case Story Approaches, Conditions, Challenges, and Outcomes."
This volume could be used in an advanced (300+ level) undergraduate Preservice Science Education program, but it is more suited for use in a graduate school setting. It would be very valuable in a science educator’s personal reference library or as the basis for a professional learning community's ongoing studies.
Review posted on 9/17/2012
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