So, you haven't heard of E-STEM?

You can innovate everywhere, even in untraditional environmental ways, that's E-STEM.

What is E-STEM?

Most people have heard of STEM, which is an acronym that stands for "Science, Technology, Engineering, & Math"; and is largely geared towards a subset of studies in education. E-STEM is an environmental emphasis on the original STEM approach, modifying it to be "Environment, Science, Technology, Engineering, & Math".

Why is E-STEM good?

Rebranding STEM to include an additional E for "Environment" is a positive move in the direction of recent priorities. We should be focusing on advancement with the environment in mind, and prepending of the E helps emphasize its position on the educational priority list. 

E-STEM and Citizen Science?

Citizen Science and E-STEM are cousins in the academic, research, and educational worlds.  Citizen Science leverages crowd sourcing in order to get people to participate in helping solve a science problem that can easily be solved with a larger dataset, of which people willingly contribute to, i.e. which birds are in your area, or the kind of coral in a picture, etc. E-STEM is the bridging of gaps within STEM as it applies to the Environmental challenges we have today. They are both ideas under the umbrella of academia and useful in steering STEM culture. 

E-STEM and STEAM

STEAM is the inclusion of "Art" into the STEM acronym. Its purpose is to address that art and creatives have a contribution in helping craft technical solutions for society. All are equally valuable in creating strong, intellectual, expressive, understanding, and adaptable societies. E-STEM shoud probably be E-STEAM, as it probably better encompasses the true initiative of STEM in general. However, on the other hand, art may be better left in its own realm. As we may never say, which is better, or if they are the same, knowledge or creativity?

Citizen E-Science

With all these derivatives and nuances, I would like to create a focus on Citizen science that specializes in environmental contributions and sciences. These projects are Citizen E-Science projects. I have identifed some that you may want to participate in:

1. NASA NEMO - Identifying Coral Reef

2. Bird Migration Sound Collector

STEM and Other Jargon

With all these acronyms to help summarize ideas and emphasis their importance, STEM is more a broad term which already encompasses Environmental Engineering, Sustainable Technology, Alternative Fuel Sciences, Solar & Wind Power, and Machine Learning for Weather; all of which are examples of STEM and also E-STEM. E-STEM is a focus on the environment within the STEM realm, its not necessarily Agriculture/Horticulture, Landscaping, or simply less technology, but rather a mutual relationship between achieving technological advancement with sustainability in mind.  Aquaponics could be an example of E-STEM, as it is an advancement that is technological and multidisciplinarian in nature and helps toward sustainability.