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Unfortunately, most of the world is experiencing a shortage of employees for careers related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Few students express interest in pursuing these fields, indicating that this shortage has no clear end. Thus, researchers and educators are grappling with ways to increase student interest in STEM fields. One suggestion is to include four critical curricular design features: (1) providing choice or autonomy in learning, (2) promoting personal relevance, (3) presenting appropriately challenging material, and (4) situating the investigations in socially and culturally appropriate contexts. In this mixed-methods study, we explore whether students recognize the incorporation of these curricular design features within a given curriculum and in what ways. 

STEM programs: encouraging an early start with engineering designNancy Butler Songer, Associate Provost of STEM Education at the University of Utah, highlights the importance of introducing STEM programs to younger students. Fifty years ago, I was one of three girls (of fifty 11 and 12-year-olds) in the after-school Science Club (Figure 1). Equipped with my bicycle and a large butterfly net, my task was to gather and identify fifty different species of insects before school began again in the fall. Little did I know that this activity was a formative experience leading to a career in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education. My experience as a twelve-year-old is consistent with a wealth of research indicating that pre-teen interest in STEM fields, including Engineering, is a strong predictor of future careers. Research studies indicate that to increase the number of students pursuing engineering and science as a career goal, we must increase activities with engineering as a fundamental component before students reach their teenage years (Sneider & Ravel, 2021). 

Youth as essential problem-solvers of our futuresNancy Butler Songer, Associate Provost of STEM Education at the University of Utah, discusses the importance of supporting and including young people as part of environmental decision-making teams and key problem-solvers of our futures. The New York Times calls the environmental threat of the Great Salt Lake in the United States an “Environmental Nuclear Bomb.” Even as water levels continue to decline (e.g., the 2022 average lake level was the lowest on record; Great Salt Lake Strike Team, 2023), regional population and water consumption continue to grow. The result is not only a dying off of the lake’s brine shrimp that support a stable ecosystem but the development of poisonous dust plumes that threaten human health. 

Inspiring STEM education focused on solutionsNancy Butler Songer, from the University of Utah, makes a call for collective action to create a new curriculum focused on the design of solutions. June 5, 2023, marked The United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) fiftieth anniversary of World Environment Day, the largest global platform for environmental public outreach. Hosted by Côte D’Ivoire, this year’s celebration emphasized a need for collective action and policy to realize known solutions, such as the sustainable design of products and materials to reduce how much plastic waste flows into aquatic ecosystems. World Environment Day helps us to recognize that to address many current environmental, educational, health, and economic challenges that have foundations in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines, we cannot rely on individuals or even experts within one area of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, or education. We must innovate with, study, and empower students, teachers, community members, and university and industry partners toward collective action. 

The global pandemic and climate change have led to unprecedented environmental, social, and economic challenges with interdisciplinary STEM foundations. Even as STEM learning has never been more important, very few pre-college programs prepare students to address these challenges by emphasizing socio-scientific issue (SSI) problem solving and the engineering design of solutions to address local phenomena. The paper discusses the design and evaluation of a pre-college, SSI curricular unit where students expand their learning by creating solutions to increase biodiversity within local urban neighborhoods. The learning approach, which we call eco-solutioning, builds from current vision and policy documents in STEM education emphasizing phenomenon-centric instructional materials, science investigations, and engineering design. The paper outlines design principles for creating an eco-solutioning instructional unit that guides young students to: collect and analyze data on local organisms, use an engineering design approach to craft solutions to increase local biodiversity, and present their solutions to local city planners and community members. Two cycles of research studies evaluated student learning using paired t-tests. Results demonstrated significant pre-post learning outcomes in both research cycles. A third research cycle in the form of a summer extension program supported students as they implemented their local solutions. Conclusions highlight design principles for the successful creation of SSI curricular units centered on local environmental issues of interest to students, teachers, and stakeholders.