This book presents a challenge similar to The White Room Challenge TV show on HGTV. How can teachers add more color, dimension, and depth to today’s traditional classrooms and educational experiences, which Rip Van Winkle would recognize? We need to move beyond just reading, writing, and arithmetic, to achieve better outcomes for traditional and diverse students in kindergarten through college-level science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses. This book provides research-based critical thinking and fresh insights for doing so.

Critical, transdisciplinary and embodied approaches in STEM education is a part of Springer’s new “Advances in STEM Education” series focused on cutting-edge research and knowledge in STEM. It consists of four parts with 19 chapters, each written by one or more researchers with impeccable credentials. Part 1’s one chapter invites readers to reimagine STEM education and introduces the other chapters in the book.

Parts 2 and 3 get to the heart of the matter. Part 2 (nine chapters) covers transdisciplinary approaches in STEM education. Chapter 5 defines STEM and its origin as an education innovation and initiative, in 1986, by the US National Science Foundation. Other countries have since launched their own. Chapter 6 warns readers that students may begin to lose interest in STEM subjects as early as the fifth grade. Each of the chapters in this section deconstructs current STEM instructional approaches and recommends transdisciplinary ones.

Part 3 (eight chapters) is organized around the second theme of this book: bodies, hegemony, and decolonization in STEM. Chapter 11 applies insights from queer theory and critical race theory to examine how two students utilize fingers and gestures to learn mathematics. Chapter 13 presents new pedagogies for initial teacher education.

Part 4 concludes the book with reflections about the previous chapters, and an index. Reading this chapter first might make it easier to navigate and integrate the others, especially for readers new to this literature.

All of the research in this book challenges the status quo--even the STEM goal proposing a focus on human capabilities rather than human production. Individually and collectively, the researchers present desirable alternatives for broad practice in educational systems. However, the book does not identify the means or methods to do so. The last challenge, then, is for the authors and editors: how can we convince investors in STEM education--political, government, business, and education leaders--to invest in these innovations and lead the requisite change?

This valuable book presents new perspectives on the past, present, and future of STEM education. It should provoke thoughtful discussions and further research and action.