Building Cultural Competence: Bridging ʻĀina and STEM in an Elementary Classroom

This qualitative case study explores how two elementary classrooms of predominantly Pacific Islander students (the majority of whom identified as Native Hawaiian) worked toward developing their cultural competence through participation in an interdisciplinary classroom-based learning experience focused on Hawaiian culture-based STEAM and maker learning. Over a four-unit series focused on wildfire prevention, watersheds, and traditional mo‘olelo (storytelling), students engaged in collaborative, place-based learning. Findings reveal that cultural and academic competence were fostered through three primary mechanisms: integrating ancestral storytelling as a pedagogical tool; grounding academic content in hyper-localized ecological contexts; and navigating the “productive struggle” caused by the lack of any Pacific Island cultural representation in standard digital tools like Scratch and Canva. By adapting technologies to reflect their own identities, students simultaneously advanced their digital literacies and academic skills in science and language arts while honouring their heritage. This study underscores the importance of viewing cultural and STEAM learning as concurrent, mutually reinforcing processes. Our bounded case in particular highlights the possibility of how, when educators centre culture-based learning, classrooms can become spaces of cultural reclamation while supporting necessary academic competencies, helping to bridge the gap between student identity and the compulsory educational system.