STEAM Implementations for Elementary School Students in Turkey

The main aim of the current research was to fill the absence of STEAM activities for primary school students in Turkey. Accordingly, a study in which STEAM activities were implemented was conducted with the primary school students. There were four activities during STEAM implementation. The activities were these: Students recognized circuit components of simple electric circuits, designed simple electric circuits using circuit components by the guidance of researchers, later designed an ecological village via STEAM using simple electric circuits, and presented their ecological village via STEAM. A quasi-experimental design with a pretest-posttest control group design was used in the current research. A qualitative research method was included in this study subsequent to quantitative dimension where a quasi-experimental design was used. At the end of the study, it was seen that there was no statistically significant difference among the pre-test and post-test scores obtained from SoATS for both experimental and control group students. The results of DAST-C test are remarkable for the experimental and control groups. It was seen that the experimental group students started to look at the physical characteristics of the scientist from a broader perspective by giving up the traditional point of view after STEAM implementation. As a result of the data analysis of semi-structured interviews, it was found that they were aware that Science, Technology, Mathematics, and Engineering disciplines were associated with one another and art was necessary both in these disciplines and daily life after the STEAM implementation