The world demands individuals with knowledge and skills in agriculture, food, and natural resources (AFNR) paired with proficiency in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) concepts. Current models for STEM education call for interdisciplinary approaches in which learners address real-world challenges, indicating high potential for collaboration with researchers and practitioners in AFNR. The purpose of this study was to articulate the state of the 2010-2017 literature for STEM in AFNR education to inform future research, innovations in practice, and interdisciplinary collaborations. Using a systematic review approach and qualitative analysis techniques, 52 peer-reviewed STEM in AFNR education articles were analyzed for general characteristics, instructional approaches, STEM subjects, relationship between STEM subjects, relationship between STEM and AFNR, justifications, foci, and operationalization of STEM in research. Within each category, we identified themes that resulted in a summary of STEM in AFNR education in which future research and practice could align. Results indicated STEM in AFNR serves a range of populations, science and math are well represented, engineering is poorly represented, and mechanisms through which STEM learning occurs are often inadequately described. We recommend a collaborative and interdisciplinary future for STEM and AFNR education because both communities are pursuing common aims.

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A curriculum framework to support the integration of academic content to support students' development of 21 st century skills including critical thinking and problems solving skills is notably absent from agricultural education. An integrative agricultural education framework is conceptualized through a review of literature in STEM education to establish integrative teaching practices. A focus on the development of students' quantitative reasoning skills through agriculture content hones the focus of the curriculum framework. Quantitative reasoning is the ability to confidently approach unique and complex problems in a real-life context by applying mathematical skill, knowledge, and reasoning. The integrative agricultural education framework developed was used to design an evaluative rubric for teachers, administrators, and curriculum designs to use as a tool for building both integrative teaching and mathematics into agricultural education curriculums intentionally and fluidly.

Our intention is to share our lived experiences as educators of educators employing Imaginative Education (IE) pedagogy. We aim to illuminate IE’s influence on our students’, and our own, affective alertness, and to leave readers feeling the possibility of this pedagogy for teaching and learning. Inspired by the literary and research praxis of métissage (Chambers et al., 2012; Hasebe-Ludt et al., 2009; Hasebe-Ludt et al., 2010), we offer this polyphonic text as a weaving together of our discrete and collective voices as imaginative teacher educators. Our writing reflects a relational process, one that invites us as writers and colleagues to better understand each other and our practices as IE educators (Hasebe-Ludt et al., 2009). It also allows us to share with other practitioners our struggles, questions, and triumphs as we make sense of our individual and collective praxis: how IE’s theory informs our practice, and how our practice informs our understanding of IE’s theory. This text, like IE’s philosophy, invites heterogeneous possibilities.

STEM literacy is identified as a necessary skill for participation in the future workforce. 4-H has responded to this need to develop STEM-ready youth by expanding access to project areas like Robotics. It has been acknowledged that recruiting and training STEM competent staff and volunteers is a limitation in expanding these types of programs. At the same time, 4-H youth are enrolled in many traditional non-STEM projects that are imbued with STEM concepts. 4-H volunteers with increased awareness of their role in fostering STEM education and STEM literacy can be a valuable resource in preparing 4-H youth with STEM-ready professional skills. 4-H professionals can train front-line volunteers to use an intentional STEM infusion approach within the experiential learning process. It is posited that volunteers will be better able to facilitate STEM learning in real-world contexts for a wide-range of 4-H youth by using this approach. The use of the ISI approach provides an opportunity for 4-H to develop more STEM-ready youth than by only serving those youths who are attracted to STEM-focused projects alone.