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This article appeared on the STEM News Technical Journal on 10/31/2025, Volume 3, Issue 2

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As a woman from North Africa who has lived on four continents and raised two boys, I have been part of the diaspora in the United States for nearly two decades. In America —a land that has been colonized and where Indigenous communities have faced centuries of oppression and erasure—my work in education is profoundly influenced by decolonial scholars, Indigenous researchers, and Black feminists. I often reflect on how my various life experiences have shaped my writing. I am a product of colonization, and my perspective is inherently political and not neutral.

It is with this personal experience that I have explored ways to create spaces in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) that prioritize liberation, decolonial principles, multiple ways of knowing, diverse cultures, and joy.

An embodied regenerative experience in education is like a return from exile to a sense of belonging. It fosters a kinship that honors life’s complexity and our place in it, reminding us that everyone belongs in STEAM. 

Western STEAM is intended not to move us, but to explain, measure, collect, engineer, and foster growth. For centuries, it has been viewed as a tool for control and prediction—useful, yes, but cold in nature. It has measured the stars, extracted Taq polymerases from Yellowstone hot water to transform molecular biology, created sophisticated tools such as the MRI or the nuclear bomb, and scanned the brain. Yet, it rarely connected with us on a deep emotional level. The shift toward this "cold" and "distant" perspective in the sciences can be traced back to the 16th and 17th centuries, during the Enlightenment era, when the Scientific Revolution rejected older traditions and moved away from a more integrated way of knowing that encompassed art, nature, spirituality, and philosophy.

For those who have been marginalized in fields such as STEAM, there is potential for significant change. Continuing with the same ways of knowing without reimagining the future through interdependency, non-Western STEAM, Indigenous, and ecological approaches will not lead to change. Unlearning Western STEAM involves the unmaking of certain practices that are siloed, oppressive, exploitative, and Eurocentric. We need to encourage inclusive and ecological STEAM practices by creating spaces where emotions are welcome, care is provided, and joy is at the center. It requires us to learn to center repairs in marginalized communities, teach emotional awareness, ecological approaches, regenerative education, collaboration, and Indigenous knowledge in order to move forward. Having a more “wholistic” approach in STEAM can counter the impostor syndrome our students feel in school in STEAM classes.

The multidisciplinary nature of STEAM involves integrating various disciplines to create a broader understanding of phenomena. This approach respects diverse perspectives and emphasizes the need to continually reassess the complex interactions of cultures, local science, and specific community needs. It is particularly important in areas such as the protection of coastal regions and watersheds, as well as the revitalization of rivers in arid regions. To effectively address these issues, we must adopt a humble attitude that is informed by local wisdom and ancestral practices. For example, the Klamath dam removal is the result of a historic, decades-long, Tribally led campaign to free the Klamath River and restore salmon and steelhead populations, which are core to Native traditions and foodways. While we live in a modern world where we experience multiple crises that threaten our way of life on Earth every day, such as climate change, flooding, droughts, pollution, and the scarcity of clean water and energy sources, we know that people can come together through caring relationships to solve these multifaceted challenges. 

To envision a more caring and loving future that aligns with principles such as regeneration, honoring life's complexities, kinship, and abundance, we must inspire and motivate change in the STEAM field.

These reflections have led me to the following questions: 

● How can we create STEAM spaces that center on belonging, empathy, compassion, and ancestral knowledge? 

● How might STEAM educators and researchers expand the study of affective and emotional phenomena in ways that afford a better understanding of human learning experiences, such as indigenous knowledge, place-based learning, and interdependency, while supporting learners' identities and emotional relationships with STEAM? 

● How can we promote STEAM learning to coexist with the earth, rather than attempting to dominate it? 

● What does it mean to divest from a culture where extraction has become the norm?

Reinstating emotional awareness in STEAM through the exploration of new STEAM epistemologies, including art and other forms of learning that do not require labeling, explanation, or naming, is crucial. This approach may help us unlearn a strictly cognitive and word-dependent approach to STEAM. The affect in STEAM connects us to the sensory self, the pre-literate self — the one who touches the soul, and develops a caring relationship with the natural world, as when witnessing a natural event, such as a solar eclipse, watching a landing on the Moon, or a group of dolphins communicating with humans through sound. 

What does it feel like when we abandon correctness in STEAM?

Much of what we've inherited — from school, religion, culture — has asked us to know, to answer, to prove. But what if some of those knowings are what keep us from truly relating, listening, wondering, and imagining? What if we reintroduce doubt into our scientific endeavors? What might grow in the soil made from old certainties? What needs composting? Or hospice care? Unlearning is not just intellectual — it is emotional, cellular, and ancestral. We need to form new relationships with the human and other-than-human world. 

Collectively, thinking about STEAM through both learning and unlearning, becoming and unbecoming for the purpose of re-imagining the future(s) through ecological and "wholistic" approaches that value interconnectedness, Indigenous and community knowledge, as well as repair at its core, will help heal the harm made to a whole diverse generation of youth who have been marginalized in STEAM. When we exclude diverse ways of knowing and doing STEAM, we not only limit who can participate in STEAM but also limit our collective capacity to understand and engage with cultures, place-based knowledge, multiple identities, and life in its full complexity. We are constantly hurt by things we exclude. By not educating in STEAM at an early age, by not giving equal access to STEAM in all schools, and by using a white-centric STEAM curriculum that excludes ancestral indigenous practices and community practices, we have created a big divide. 

The demand for STEAM talent is expected to continue growing worldwide. As well as the need for arts and humanities.  Students with a STEAM degree would also need to understand world geography and history, speak a foreign language, and possess a desire to be globally empathetic and compassionate individuals who are mindful of their impact on the world and on Earth. 

Being STEAMLY educated doesn't exclude being educated in humanity and civic education. The demand for technical talent across the United States is expected to continue growing exponentially. Yet the need for arts and humanities talent remains significant, particularly given instabilities in the global order, economic uncertainties, and the possibility of another global pandemic. The disciplines are not mutually exclusive, as having STEAM literacy is at the core of all knowledge. STEAM is everywhere. STEAM makes sense to many students when they see it as relevant to their daily lives and when we bring care to the center.

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