Developing STEAM activities for middle school students in the field of science lesson living things and life

In this thesis, it is aimed to develop STEAM activities for secondary school students within the scope of the subject area of living things and life in the science lesson. The study was carried out within the framework of the technical/scientific/collaborative action research approach, which is the action research type of qualitative research methods. The activity development process was carried out in 3 stages: expert evaluation, pre-pilot application and pilot application. In the expert evaluation, 20 STEAM activities developed by the researcher were presented to the opinions of 5 faculty members who are experts in the field of science education, and as a result of the examinations, they were reduced to 12 activities. Then, necessary arrangements were made for the activities in line with the views of 10 science teachers. After receiving expert opinions, a pre-pilot was conducted with a total of 8 secondary school students. Activities were organized after the pre-pilot implementation for the pilot evaluation, applications were made for 5 weeks with 55 students studying in the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grades of Doğukent Secondary School in Elazığ province. As a result of the pilot application, the activities were finalized. In the study, "semi-structured interview" and "student diaries" were used as data collection tools. While the semi-structured interviews with the students were analyzed using the content analysis method, the data obtained from the semi-structured interviews and diaries with the teachers were analyzed using the descriptive analysis method. It has been seen that the STEAM activities developed are suitable for the determined gains, are applicable within the scope of science, engineering and entrepreneurship applications, are suitable for the student level, and the activities include science, technology, engineering, mathematics and art disciplines. As a result of the pilot application; Students of STEAM activities; It has been seen that it improves 21st century skills, scientific process skills, affective skills and psychomotor skills. In addition, the activities carried out to the students; It has been seen that it provides technological contributions such as scanning-creating barcodes, designing logos, preparing posters, using tinkercad and using computers. According to the findings obtained from the student diaries; It was concluded that the students had fun, were happy and had a good time during the STEAM activities. In this study, STEAM activities were developed for secondary school students within the scope of the Science Course Living and Life subject area. STEAM activities can be developed for all units of the Science course and researches can be conducted on this subject.