When contextualizing educational methods, teachers can focus on constructivism to develop inquiry materials as STEAM subject matter for use in schools. However, there is little research concerning what STEAM teaching resources teachers view as inquiry with hands-on STEAM instructional material for use in kindergartens. Therefore, this research used a spiral developmental course design with action research to apply a teaching inquiry and hands-on STEAM model focusing on lesson development for kindergarten children via a one-year workshop. The lesson development process of this research included a total of six stages, allowing 24 participating teachers to analyse the STEAM elements from their original lesson plans, then make revisions according to a model, including: prediction, do/observation, quiz/discussion, and explanation/ transfer (PD/OQ/DE/T). After the initial lesson plan was completed, teaching experiments were conducted, and the lesson plan was adjusted through reflection and revisions based on the suggestions of domain experts during the implementation process. Finally, 48 PDOQDET inquiry and hands-on based STEAM lesson plans were developed. Thus, it is proposed that the inquiry and hands-on i-STEAM modules developed using the PDOQDET approach can represent exemplars illustrative of an enriched design constructivist paradigm to support students’ i-STEAM learning in kindergartens. Keywords: early childhood education, hands-on learning, inquiry teaching, lesson plan design, STEAM

STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education is recognized as the world’s top education program. However, few STEM programs have been designed based on cultural-historical events. To explore this issue, the present study drew on the cultural-historical activity theory and the content analysis method by adopting the descriptive-interpretative approach to explore the STEM content of the Dujiangyan Irrigation System (DIS) in present-day Sichuan, China. As early as 2,275 years ago during the Warring States period, Li Bing, the governor of Shu Shire in the Qin state, implicitly implemented the STEM concept when building the irrigation system. The results of this study indicate that the DIS incorporates Science (e.g., the hydraulic principle), Technology (e.g., making a large cobblestone Bamboo-Cage for building Fish Mouth), Engineering (e.g., water-level measurement) and Mathematics (e.g., Calculation of sand discharge). Adopting an educational pedagogy proposed by UNESCO which emphasized learning concepts from daily life, the present study draws on a cultural-historical event to inform STEM learning. The method and results of this study can be applied in the design of STEM programs based on other cultural-historical events from around the world. Keywords: cultural-historical activity theory, Dujiangyan, hydraulic engineering, interdisciplinary knowledge, STEM