It was recently shown that the introduction of video art in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) education alleviates negative academic emotion and also creates a positive learning experience for university science students. Furthermore, students' writing apprehension levels towards technical writing may be manipulated via pre-writing techniques and strategies, such as free-writing. Notably, it has been maintained that the English for Academic/English for Scientific Purposes (EAP/EScP) courses can provide fruitful grounds for the investigation of the class-related state emotion. In the present study, we devised a pre-technical writing teaching intervention that involved a STREAM (Science, Technology, Reading/Writing, Engineering, Art, Math) lesson plan. This comprised of William Blake's poetry presented in the context of his illuminated books of Songs of Innocence and Experience, with an emphasis on the analysis of his poem, the Tyger. Subsequently, students engaged with an Augmented Reality (AR) art book and created their own AR artwork. Students were requested to record their emotions and attitudes on the art and technology involved. Also, they were asked to produce a written piece on their views on the visual languages and realities that they experienced. The assessment of academic emotion occurred prior-and post-teaching, followed by the experience evaluation of the intervention. Results denote a positive experience, a partial increase in positive emotion and a generalized drop of intense negative academic emotion, and are thus in line with recent studies in the field.

Academic emotion is somewhat neglected in the literature despite affecting students' performance in higher education. Importantly, it has been suggested that English for Academic/English for Scientific Purposes (EAP/EScP) courses may provide fruitful grounds for further investigation into class-related state emotions. In this study, we assessed college students' concurrent and retrospective emotions in a Science Department's first-year EAP/EScP course. The assessments occurred prior- and post-teaching intervention which involved STEM activities. Students engaged to a multidisciplinary STREAM (Science, Technology, Reading/Writing, Engineering, Art, Math) lesson plan that included video art and creative writing. The video art material was specifically curated for the course by an awarded international art festival and explored cutting-edge technological video art approaches to science concepts and their interconnection to profound personal and social concerns. Participants recorded their emotions and attitudes towards the video art material. Further to this, students were asked to produce their own science fiction stories in response to the “Camille stories” by the academic Donna Haraway and to use finger-paint to express their state of emotions. Finally, students evaluated the teaching intervention. Interestingly, the STREAM intervention results in a significant alleviation of negative academic emotion, even in the context of one lesson, while students value the educational experience.

Lack of experience is often mistaken for inability, preventing women and underrepresented groups from following careers in STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math). However, it has been shown that informal learning environments are effective in attracting young people to STEM, even in online settings. Here, we create such a space to boost curiosity about how the human brain shapes reality. Results show that participants acquire new knowledge, value the educational experience and are intrigued to pursue further learning.

Science students are required to produce technical writing in the form of lab reports, student posters, conference papers and journal submissions. However, students commonly report writer's block when engaged with such writing activities. To address this issue several pre-writing strategies have been developed to unblock including free writing. In this study, students' writing apprehension levels towards technical writing were investigated by means of a Writing Apprehension Test (WAT) in the context of an English for Academic/Scientific Purposes (EAP/EScP) course in a Chemistry Department in Higher Education. Subsequently, students were introduced to a pre-writing exercise and WAT scores were determined post teacher intervention. Finally, students were instructed to produce written work in terms of a short story involving technical concepts of their field and WAT levels were determined anew. Interestingly, results show an increase in apprehension levels upon engagement with the pre-writing exercise. The effect is not alleviated in the technical writing stage nor does it increase in size.

Content Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) refers to the combined teaching of a foreign language and a scientific topic. In this study, forty-nine, non-native speakers of English, first-year Chemistry students in Higher Education without prior experience in STREAM (Science, Technology, Reading, Engineering, Art and Mathematics) education were recruited. Students were requested to deal with scenarios involving robot programming in the context of an English for Academic/Scientific Purposes (EAP/EScP) course. More specifically, a lesson plan was devised that involved an introduction to the basic principles of programming through the Hour of Code protocol. Then, students were required to program the Edison robots to execute specific actions as described in the scenarios they received. Also, students were handed-in papers to practice on their understanding of the scientific concepts that were introduced in this exercise. Appropriate questionnaires were devised and used to assess students’ linguistic and scientific background and to describe the students’ experience. Results underline the students’ enthusiasm and their wish for the inclusion of further STREAM exercises in their curriculum of studies.