Table 1. Suggested objectives and projects for STEM education at each grade level.

Grade Level	Objectives and Rationale	Examples of Interdisciplinary Projects
Elementary school	Build positive attitudes towards non-human organisms by stressing how they help humans because pro-environmental attitudes are an important baseline predictor of pro-environmental behavior [21].	(i) Learn about organisms essential to food production and carry out descriptive studies on them in school gardens. Then, communicate findings to the school community.(ii) Learn about the cultural practices that local indigenous peoples use(d) to manage natural capital and have older students educate younger students about how and why these groups value(d) non-human kinds.
Middle school	Teach in depth about one local ecosystem service and its benefits because particular attitudes towards specific environmental problems predict whether one engages in environmental behavior [21]. Introduce students to green jobs and local professionals who have them in order to lay the foundation for a sustainable economy.	(i) Monitoring of a local ecosystem service where students work collaboratively to choose appropriate sampling techniques, analyze and interpret data, argue about its meaning, and effectively communicate these interpretations to different audiences outside of school (i.e., local politicians, business people, family).(ii) An interview project where students are introduced to local professionals with green jobs and interview them to learn about the job. Students present their findings to the class.
High school	Teach particular strategies used to solve environmental problems and have students apply these strategies to a local environmental issue, because: (i) knowledge of environmental action strategies reinforces the relationship between pro-environmental attitudes and pro-environmental behavior [21]; (ii) building upon self-efficacy and locus of control can influence the desire to engage in newly developed environmental behaviors [21].	(i) Design and carry out adaptive co-management projects [34] around a local ecosystem service in conjunction with a local scientist or through a MOOC offered by a university.(ii) Discuss the sociological dimensions of ecological degradation, such as EJ issues [28]. Then, envision solutions to local EJ issues and present them to local policy makers in the community.(iii) Apply environmental action strategies to address a local environmental issue in collaboration with local STEM professionals who are environmental advocates.
Undergraduate	Deepen students' awareness of the complex relationships inherent in human-ecological interactions in order to create a new generation of STEM workers who are capable of working across disciplinary boundaries to assess, preserve, and restore ecosystems in order to improve human welfare.	(i) Participation in faculty led research programs that investigate the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem services, restoration ecology, conservation biology, environmental economics, and social ecology.(ii) Engage mathematics students in projects that model the non-linear relationships between population growth, poverty, consumption, and ecology [10].(iii) Engage social science students in projects that require them to envision win-win solutions to biodiversity issues, which are interventions that can benefit both the rural poor and biodiversity [11],[27].(iv) MOOCs that engage participants in ecological research using community science research protocols [34] and which also require people to adopt behaviors to reduce their ecological footprint.

EJ, environmental justice.