This dissertation study examined the implementation of STEM education policy by comparing teachers' understanding and enactment of environmental projects at two STEM high schools. This study found a mismatch between the goals of STEM education policy and the realities faced by teachers in STEM schools. It raised questions about what policy measures will be required for pubic school teachers to sustain a project-based and integrated STEM curriculum. It raised serious questions about the restrictions placed upon STEM schools and teachers in poor communities. It also raised hopes, indicating that teachers can find spaces for innovation amidst these constraints, particularly in courses and pathways that remain uncoupled from state testing policies. Based upon the findings, a vision for a greener, more democratic, and more equitable STEM education is presented in the concluding chapter. In response to economic and vocational data, federal and state policymakers in the United States have urged reforms to K-12 STEM education. The general vision among policymakers is that a project-based and integrated STEM curriculum will prepare students who can compete in a global knowledge economy. Empirical research on teachers' ability to implement STEM education policy remains scarce, however. The literature on educational reform, project-based learning, and environmental education suggests that teachers will experience significant challenges. To clarify this situation, the idealist aspects of STEM education policy must be combined with empirical evidence drawn for real-world classrooms. Data sources included in-depth interviews, classroom observations, and classroom artifacts and were drawn from a sample of 17 teachers and administrators. Data were analyzed using a conceptual framework related to project-based learning, environmental discourse, and environmental education. By adopting a phenomenological and ethnographic approach, this iii study explored the interactions among policy levels, school and classroom cultures, and teachers' experience, including their life histories. Both schools in the study-Central STEM High School and Capital STEM Academywere awarded a seed grant by the state. The findings revealed that teachers used instruction as a culture-building strategy. In this way, project-based learning (Central) and the engineering design process (Capital) were revalued for the skills and dispositions they required of teachers and students. Over time, these cultures of instruction were negatively impacted by larger-thanexpected class sizes, teachers' emotions, time pressures, relational tensions, and state/district policies related to testing and curriculum. As a result, projects at both schools were compromised. This study found that teachers who participated in environmental projects at both schools were driven by childhood nature experiences. In several cases, these experiences were connected their adult interests in science and environmental issues. Teacher at both schools felt free to address the moral, social, and po...
