Abstract:
The purposes of this study were to: 1) study the needs assessment in development a STEAM selective science course on “Rice field” and 2) develop the course based on data from the needs assessment. The semi-structured interviews were used to interview 3 science teachers from the secondary schools in Nongkae district and the evaluation forms were used to get the experts’ opinions on the course. The data were analyzed in term of mean, standard deviation and content analysis. The findings of this study were as follows: 1. Most selective science courses at schools are science project courses that focus on practicing science process skills but lack of integration with any other subjects. And the teachers’ opinions about STEAM selective course revealed that the course is good and interesting that could support students’ learning. And there were many ways to conduct learning activities such as outdoor learning in the real context or learning from local people that focus on problem solving and disseminate that result to other people. 2. The developed science course consist of 3 learning unit: Unit 1 From paddy to milled rice, Unit 2 Rice and its entangled in life and Unit 3 Ordinary rice grains to value-added products. The results of the course evaluation by experts showed that the course is appropriate at the high level at overall and the course components are internally consistent.
