Developing Competencies for Sustainability Through STEM Education in Mongolia

The need for a sustainable world was unanimously acknowledged by the United Nations members in September 2015, when 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were set, positioning education at the heart of their strategy. In Mongolia, within Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) framework, policy documents such as “Mongolia Sustainable Development Vision 2030” and “Guidelines and Requirements to Implement the Concept of Sustainable Development Education in Secondary Schools” have been developed and adopted. Since 2000, the Mongolian education system has been striving to integrate ESD into school education standards, core curricula, and textbooks. In addition, there is a strong interest in STEM education, but it has not been directly integrated into the objectives, content, and methods of general education. Therefore, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Science, and Sports (MECSS) began supplying STEM tools (kits) to all primary schools in Mongolia in 2017. This chapter describes the relationship between the competencies for sustainability and the abilities to be developed through STEM education and investigates the effects of STEM lessons using these tools on the development of these abilities.