Abstract

STEM education has become a cornerstone of 21st-century learning, sparking curiosity, creativity, and practical reasoning in young learners. In the early primary grades, STEM-based approaches help students bridge the gap between different disciplines and apply their knowledge to real-life challenges. This study aimed to design and implement a STEM-based instructional unit for grades one to three in Saudi elementary schools, examining its effectiveness in developing problem-solving skills across four key areas: identifying the problem, generating possible solutions, implementing those solutions, and evaluating the outcomes. Adopting a quasi-experimental design, the study involved 46 students randomly selected from three public elementary schools in Al-Ahsa, Saudi Arabia. The intervention consisted of a nine-lesson unit that integrated science, mathematics, engineering, and technology through activities tailored specifically to the developmental level of young learners. Data were collected using an oral problem-solving test aligned with STEM processes. The findings revealed that the STEM-based unit significantly boosted students’ overall problem-solving abilities. The most notable gains were seen in implementation skills, followed by problem identification, solution generation, and finally evaluation skills. These results suggest that hands-on, exploratory learning fosters a child's ability to apply and test their ideas even before they can systematically assess them. Ultimately, the study highlights how STEM-integrated learning cultivates inquiry, reasoning, and confidence in tackling real-world problems from the very start of schooling. Looking ahead, these results underscore the importance of expanding STEM instruction in Saudi primary education through teacher training and curriculum innovation