Interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education is more important than ever since the Pandemic ravaged our nation's medical resources and personnel. This exploratory study, intended to establish and characterize potential identifiers and markers of student interest development in an inquiry-driven learning environment, offers middle and high school librarians and teachers of all subjects another tool in their toolbox to teach and promote literacy and interest in STEM subjects and activities. This dissertation project, created to satisfy the requirements of the Rutgers University School of Communications and Information Ph.D. program in Library & Information Science, features fifth-graders in an after-school program in New Jersey. It incorporates the integration of Science Fiction and STEM into a Guided Inquiry unit, focusing on the potential triggering, identifying, and observing of STEM and ancillary non-STEM situational and individual interests. Incorporating Design-Based Research (Barab, 2014) and methodological triangulation (Flick, 2018), an online pilot was first conducted in Emergency Remote Teaching conditions with four students in 2020/21. Adjustments were made to the instructional design per the principles of DBR, and a second, 11-week iteration was conducted with 12 students in 2021/22. Student contact was limited and ERT conditions were still in place, though eased to allow in-person instruction. Methodologically, three case studies, pre-and-post, semi-structured interviews, videography with transcription, field observation, and qualitative coding, are utilized to examine the students' interactions with science fiction and STEM content. Two research questions explore interest development in two areas: Science and STEM, and Science Fiction and other non-STEM topics; e.g. creating projects, global climate change, playing educational games. Observations suggest student activities during inquiry may be related to triggering of both situational and individual interest throughout the Guided Inquiry (Kuhlthau, et al., 2012) unit, revealed through three waves of data analysis. Potential inquiry design enhancements are offered, and additional observations consider future directions in interest development research. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]