Abstract:
The year 2020 saw Australia’s worst bushfire season on record, followed by the global COVID-19 pandemic, and news of artificial intelligence algorithms causing many students to lose their place at universities in the United Kingdom. The world increasingly mirrors narratives once dreamed of in science fiction stories and films highlighting the potential of fiction as a pedagogical and social tool for predicting, critiquing, and building different futures. This paper draws from my ongoing research that links English literary education and STEM through literary texts and argues for the importance of cross-curricular collaboration in schools as a necessary means to engage students in discussions on pressing socio-political, environmental, and technological concerns.