New Perspectives in Science Education

This research aims to enhance local science teacher’s ability to manage learning activities that promote the implication of scientific knowledge and sufficiency economy principle to sustainable agriculture. Collaborative action research which was utilized to improve instructional process and professional development simultaneously contained the following stages; 1) the successful cases of sustainable agriculture management were analyzed to build a framework for learning activity development, 2) research participants collaboratively planed the research project together, 3) basic information was collected, 4) learning activities was designed, 5) the 4 stages of action research cycle (plan, do, observe, and reflect) were implemented in the classroom by the participating teacher and researchers, 6) the learning activities were revised after the implementation. The result of reflecting the successful cases of sustainable agriculture management indicated that scientific knowledge and skills played an important role in sustainable agriculture and sufficiency economy principle because they are parts of knowledge and rationality in the principle. The result of professional development showed that the teacher had an ability to organize learning activity that improved student’s inquiry skills by having students observe, pose questions and find the answers by themselves. The result of student’s learning indicated that student’s understanding of sustainable agriculture was at high level, student’s understanding of sufficient economy was at moderate level, student’s problem-solving skill was at moderate level, and student’s awareness about the importance of sustainable agriculture for the conservation of natural recourses was at high level. Moreover, the learning activities from this collaborative action research could be used in the school to which the context is similar.

Keywords: sufficiency economy, sustainable agriculture, professional development, collaborative action research;

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