STEM education has gained prominence in the past decade. Iowa’s STEM initiative has a budget of $5.4 million this year, with the bulk of that to be spent on STEM programming, teacher professional development, school-business partnerships and statewide IT certification.

But with all of the emphasis on STEM, other academic fields have been diminished, educators said.

College of Education Assistant Professor Jason Harshman talks about the importance of interdisciplinary lessons in a recent Iowa Ideas article.