Environmental STEM (E-STEM) in Building Climate-Resilient Communities in Aceh: Students’ Awareness

The environmental STEM (E-STEM) approach helps students to understand problems related to the environment and solutions to overcome the issues. Many studies show how applying the E-STEM approach in education increase students' awareness of protecting the environment and being adaptive and resilient to the impact of climate change. This paper explains the findings of E-STEM learning activities and outcomes in a school setting (grade XI) in Aceh. Qualitative approach with Focus Group Discussion (FGD) with 11 senior high school students taught about the environmental issue using the E-STEM. Students have low environmental awareness of the impact of climate change. Furthermore, students' unwise behavior in using electricity and transportation and lack of waste management indicate a gap in implementing the E-STEM approach within the current National Independent Learning Curriculum. Despite the shortcoming of the learning activities and outcomes, the study highlights the importance of introducing natural connectedness through E-STEM learning at an early age to be adaptive and resilient to the impact of climate change