Socioscientific Issues as a STEM Education Approach

Abstract

This entry discusses socioscientific issues (SSI) as a STEM education approach and as an approach to achieve scientific literacy, a goal shared by policymakers, scientists, and educational researchers and practitioners. We start by briefly discussing STEM education, its changes and current direction. We suggest that SSI offers an approach for STEM education that would cater for the needs of all learners. Then, we elaborate on SSI by comparing this approach with its cognate approaches such as STS (Science-Technology-Society) and STSE (where “E” stands for “Environment”) to highlight the ways that SSI differs from the others. SSI research and practice have gained momentum over the past 20 years or so. We discuss the ways that it is practiced in various parts of the world and at different levels of education, and the roles that it plays in teacher education. We conclude this entry by identifying some future directions for SSI research and teaching as a major contributor to STEM education.