Humanistic STEM: Blending Humanities and STEM to Increase Undergraduate Student Engagement, Knowledge, and Skills

This project aims to serve the national interest by improving undergraduate STEM education. To do so, it will develop, distribute, and research a transferable Humanistic STEM (H-STEM) undergraduate curriculum model that blends humanities and STEM. H-STEM is defined as “a blending of the study of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics with interest in, and concern for, human affairs, welfare, values, or culture.” H-STEM highlights connections between humanities and STEM, while reinforcing the relevance of each.

The project will support different levels of H-STEM curriculum development, from individual modules for implementation within a course to full H-STEM courses, as well as an H-STEM undergraduate minor. Project goals also include the development of the Humanistic STEM Center to facilitate integration of the humanities and STEM disciplines at other universities.

Employers in STEM fields have stressed the need for students to develop skills such as creative problem solving, critical thinking, ethical reasoning, and communication. These are skills are often best developed in humanities courses. The institutions participating in this project will work to implement H-STEM at a variety of institutional types to create a better prepared STEM workforce.

H-STEM is a targeted response to two main concerns: (1) a false dichotomization of ways of knowing and skills as either humanities- or STEM-focused, a situation exacerbated by institutional silos; and (2) the devaluing of skills associated with the humanities as less important, or even irrelevant, to STEM students. The most significant product resulting from this project will be a model for blending humanities and STEM content in ways that result in students achieving a deeper realization of the connections between these meta-disciplines.

H-STEM can also lead to more profound student understanding of the wide applicability of the skills and competencies they acquire in their courses. Project leadership will develop an assessment framework that will use direct empirical data to measure project impact and inform future action. Evidence from a pilot shows that H-STEM students can apply interdisciplinary knowledge, concepts, skills, and methods of inquiry attained in academic settings to produce creative responses to complex problems and situations.

These skills allow the students to blend their technical competence with the creative and critical thinking skills that are increasingly essential for continued success in any STEM field in the United States. The anticipated result of broad implementation of H-STEM will be STEM-focused graduates who are more closely aligned with the expectations of industry leaders, possess the requisite technical skills, and have increased capacity for empathy, refined communication skills, and rich exposure to cultural diversity.

These outcomes will have full utility in areas of student lives beyond their jobs, regardless of discipline, learner level or workforce sector. Through a dissemination plan that targets a variety of academic audiences, and the formation of a consortium comprising multiple institutional types, this framework has the potential to significantly impact multiple student populations.

The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.