STEAM provides an avenue for formally teaching the inter-relationships of how subjects relate in real-life. This educational approach can be enjoyably and meaningfully delivered in more engaging and deeply embedding ways within the already well-established realm of education. DiSTARS is about engaging students in a multi- and interdisciplinary learning context that values the artistic activities, while breaking down barriers that have traditionally existed between different classes and subjects. In principle it is based on the natural ways that people learn and are interested in things.

In the framework of DiSTARS educational approach, students present their own visions (in the form of digital multi-path stories) for the future of space exploration. They explore major scientific challenges and technological problems through the act of creation rather than the consumption of content. These students’ stories and the accompanying pedagogic principles (such as IBSE, Problem Solving, Collaborative Learning) are the core of this practice. Students are supported during the development of these stories via the inquiry and creative learning approaches (e.g. hands-on classroom activities) in order to generate innovative practice and creativity in STEM related activities. This is strongly encouraged in the way the DiSTARS pedagogic principles are ultimately employed in order to help learners and adult professionals imagine new ideas in STEM education; to shift from “what is” to new possibilities of “what might be”.

Digital storytelling can be used by educators to support students’ learning by encouraging them to organize and express their ideas and knowledge in an individual and meaningful way while developing digital skills and key competencies. Such approach, adopted by DiSTARS, helps students develop traditional communication skills, fosters collaboration, and strengthens emergent literacy practices. Students develop enhanced communication skills by learning to organize their ideas, ask questions, present their work, express opinions, and construct narratives as they interact with colleagues and a storytelling platform in the creation of digital stories.

Additonally, the proposed DiSTARS innovative teaching strategies offer students high participation and enable them to generate highly imaginative possibilities and support deeper learning. In order for teachers to achieve deeper learning outcomes for their students, they must exchange the “instructor” role for that of the coach of learning. DiSTARS represents this new vision for teaching, and outlines strategies for how teachers’ roles and conditions can support and enable deeper learning for students. Teachers can successfully achieve deeper learning with students when they “personalize learning experiences, apply real-world knowledge to learning, and use technology in a way that enhances and empowers student learning”. This includes students’ learning-to-learn competences.

A vast array of digital tools, integrated to a storytelling platform,  support students during the process of creating their digital stories: they are able to enrich their stories with visualizations, 3D artifacts, models, dioramas and paintings, videos and animations, audio, theatrical performances. The growing accessibility of enabling learning technologies is giving rise to a whole new level of comfort with producing media and prototypes. Honing such skills in students can lead to deeply engaging learning experiences in which students will become the authorities on subjects through investigation, storytelling, and production. A recent report on Girls in STEM (Accenture 2017) clearly shows that young girls need to be exposed to STEM subjects (especially computer science) at a much earlier age than today’s students or else there is a risk of them being lost in the transition between primary and secondary education. Focusing on students – and girls in particular – below the age of 12, increases the chances of preventing this gap from appearing. DiSTARS, targets this age group and recommends replacing the competitive-type classroom environment by a more girls friendly instructional approach in which enough time and conditions are given to think, inquire, and understand thoroughly. This could be accomplished by sharing ideas, arguing, asking questions and analyzing data in small groups of students who work in collaborative manner.