Education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics has received growing attention over the past decade, with calls both for greater emphasis on these fields and for improvements in curricula and instruction within and across them. In the policy arena and increasingly among educators, these subjects together are referred to as STEM.

Scienceis the study of the natural world, including the laws of NATUREassociated with physics, chemistry, and biology and the treatment or application of facts, principles, concepts, or conventions associated with these disciplines. Science is both a body of knowledge that has been accumulated over time and a process—scientific inquiry—that generates new knowledge. Knowledge from science informs the engineering design process.

Technology, while not a discipline in the strictest sense, comprises the entire system of people and organizations, knowledge, processes, and devices that go into creating and operating technological artifacts, as well as the artifacts themselves. Throughout history, humans have created technology to satisfy their wants and needs. Much of modern technology is a product of science and engineering, and technological.

Engineeringis both a body of knowledge—about the design and creation of human-made products—and a process for solving problems. This process is design under constraint. One constraint in engineering design is the laws of nature, or science Engineering utilizes concepts in science and mathematics as well as technological tools.

Mathematicsis the study of patterns and relationships among quantities, numbers, and space. The logical arguments themselves are part of mathematics along with the claims. As in science, knowledge in mathematics continues to grow, but unlike in science, knowledge in mathematics is not overturned, unless the foundational assumptions are transformed.

By: Emmanuel Quiroz