Literacy in STEM is critical to individual and national success in the twenty-first century, the century of science. Gifted students are in a position to make especially profound contributions to solving the world's major challenges and creating new economic opportunity. But modern American culture and the way STEM education is approached and valued are both working against this outcome. Being a science teacher today is hard. There is a lot to navigate and there are limited resources and limited time. Teacher education and curriculum lets many science teachers down. Science could not be more critical to students' lives, and it has also never before been so broadly under attack in students' lives. Some of the most critical topics, such as the teaching of evolution, are openly challenged by antiscience students, parents, and legislators alike. Improving STEM performance among both gifted students and all students in that sort of climate takes lifting it out of the textbook, pulling it out of the lab, and reconnecting the dots about why science and evidence-based critical thinking is valuable in daily life. The most gifted scientists and engineers are the ones that can look at life, or at other fields beyond their own discipline, and make a connection that creates new knowledge or solves problems. They are as curious and creative as artists in their thinking, but they are artists who, as John Locke recommended, tie their thinking back into the physical world, taking the mind back to the place at which it bottoms. (Contains 6 online resources.)