The Inspiration Research Of The STEM Projects Supported By The National Science Foundation Of USA In The Past 5 Years On The Interdisciplinary Practice In Our Country’s Middle Schools

In the face of the current core literacies in various disciplines,the interdisciplinary nature of the core literacies in the curricula of various disciplines predestines interdisciplinary practice as an important way to cultivate students’ core literacies,and interdisciplinary practice is gradually becoming a current trend in education development,providing a suitable vehicle for the cultivation of disciplinary core literacies.NSF(National Science Foundation,NSF)released the Science,Mathematics and Engineering Undergraduate Education(also known as the Neal Report)in 1986,which put forward the overarching recommendation of "integrating science,mathematics,engineering and technology education".Over the past thirty years,NSF has now developed a sound system for running STEM research programmes.This study examines the current status of NSF-funded STEM projects in the US,and explores the pathways and trends in the development of STEM education in primary and secondary schools in the US,with a view to providing references for interdisciplinary practices in secondary schools in China.By reviewing relevant literature,this study first defines the concepts of STEM education and interdisciplinary teaching,and compares the current situation of STEM development in China and the US and the current situation of interdisciplinary teaching development in secondary schools in China,and summarises the characteristics of interdisciplinary teaching in China.On this basis,825 cases of STEM projects in the last 5 years(2018~2022)were collected through the National Science Foundation website,and 142 cases of STEM projects related to primary and secondary schools were selected from them.After sorting out the project time,research themes,research objects and the distribution of research institutions,the key words of the projects were counted using gephi,and the key word co-word matrix and Keyword social network mapping,to obtain the hotspots and trends of STEM funded in primary and secondary schools in the US in the past 5 years.The 15 representative cases of142 STEM projects in primary and secondary schools were also analysed in terms of the project’s starting and ending dates,funded amount,project objectives,project process and project evaluation.The analysis found that the themes of STEM projects in the US were more focused on three areas: teacher development and reform,applied strategies,and technology and environmental design.The research institutions of STEM projects show a social co-optation,including universities,research institutions,enterprises,foundations,associations,museums,public interest organisations and tribes,with the largest number of universities and the second largest number of research institutions and enterprises.In terms of research subjects,the main focus is on higher education,followed by primary and secondary education and informal education.In terms of the number of studies,its projects show growth in number from 2018 to2022,and this growth continues to expand.The themes of STEM projects in primary and secondary schools in the US tend to focus on three main areas: technology and environmental design research,applied strategy research,and application cases.The number of research institutions in STEM programs includes universities,research institutions,corporations,foundations,associations,and museums,with universities continuing to be the most numerous and corporations the second most numerous.In terms of the number of studies,the projects are at a more stable value overall from 2018 to 2020,and show a surge in 2020 to 2022.The social network mapping of keywords reveals that the hotspots for STEM funding in primary and secondary schools are "STEM curriculum","STEM career development" and "K-12",around which These three hotspots have formed a dense research area.However,there are still some keywords that are on the edge of research and not closely related to other keywords.Based on the aforementioned research and case studies,this study is oriented towards interdisciplinary practice in China,and offers insights from various aspects,such as system construction,resource mining,application guarantee,evaluation system and teacher development.Firstly,the top-level design of interdisciplinary practice should be done well,with the fundamental goal of promoting students’ core literacy and constructing a localised teaching system;secondly,interdisciplinary practice resources should be tapped on the basis of science and technology,and teaching methods suitable for core literacy cultivation should be selected;again,a situation of multi-channel joint development of interdisciplinary practice should be created,with emphasis on students’ future career development;then,evaluation indicators based on the knowledge system of physics disciplines should be established,and a Finally,innovative forms of teacher research and training are used to emphasize teachers’ interdisciplinary practice literacy and improve the overall quality of the teacher team.