Transformative Art History, Empowering Geometry: STEAM-H Education and Critical–Visual Maker Culture Towards Sustainable Futures

Abstract

What if future teachers could learn to read the world like art historians, reason about it like mathematicians, and engage with it as sustainable change-makers? Through the lens of STEAM-H, this study examines their potential to become transformative educators fostering critical thinking and spatial–geometric competencies. The aim is to analyse how future teachers demonstrate Critical Spatial Literacy (CSL) skills—such as spatial literacy, critical thinking, and onto-semiotic dimensions—when carrying out hermeneutic readings of works of art and constructing models from AI-generated images within the framework of Critical–Visual Maker (CVM) Culture. This qualitative-descriptive study examines evidence from students’ analyses of pairs of classical and contemporary artworks, as well as models linked to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), applying CSL categories in both cases. The findings reveal a transition from formal descriptions in mathematics and art history to more complex critical interpretations. Furthermore, the interrelationship among the three groups of categories proposed in the theoretical framework becomes evident. The study concludes that, by engaging in reflective and critical questioning, the interaction between STEAM-H, CSL, and CVM Culture can constitute an effective educational ecosystem for fostering geometric creativity, critical spatial literacy, and interdisciplinarity, thereby contributing to the development of a critical and egalitarian citizenship committed to global challenges and sustainable futures.