This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of the STEAM approach implemented with principles of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in improving elementary students' environmental awareness. A quantitative method was used with a one-group pretest-posttest design. Thirty fifth-grade students participated in a four-week project-based learning program. The results showed an increase in the average environmental awareness score from 69.5 (pretest) to 83.2 (posttest), with a significance value of p = 0.000 < 0.05. Project-based learning that applied ESD principles within a STEAM approach helped students understand environmental issues concretely and encouraged pro-environmental attitudes. The study concludes that integrating ESD principles into STEAM-based learning is effective in fostering early environmental awareness. The implication is that this model can be adopted as a contextual learning strategy in primary education.
Setiawan et al. (Tue,) studied this question.