New Educational Trials for Science and Technology by Cooperating with Industries

It is important to understand Science and Technology in terms of their social roles, when high school or junior high school students study mathematics and science. Industries develop products on the basis of Science and Technology, which are good examples in order to understand the social roles of Science and Technology. In order to make new educational models for Science and Technology by cooperating with Industries, we opened Office for the Next Generation (ONG) in Institute of Industrial Science (IIS), the University of Tokyo. In this paper, new educational trials for Science and Technology are proposed for connecting Industries and Educations.

We adopted "Driving mechanism of vehicles" as a theme of new educational activity, which is a research topic of Prof. Yoshihiro Suda, IIS. By cooperating with Tokyo Metro Co., Ltd. and JTEKT Corp., Prof. Suda gave a visiting lecture to first-year students at Urawa Ichijo high school in Japan. This lecture mainly consists of "understanding of wheels", "future vehicles", and "industrial structures".

Understanding of Wheels      A wheel model for railroad was provided by Tokyo Metro Co., Ltd. The students tried to make variously shaped wheel models run on a curved rail, and learned that the shape of wheels is important for curving along the rail. This part is concerned with "differential and integral calculus" of school-level mathematics and "power and dynamical energy" of school-level physics.

A Future Vehicle – A Parallel Two-Wheeled Vehicle      The students learned the latest transport technology by the use of the parallel two-wheeled vehicle which is one of the future vehicles. Since these future vehicles have been developed so that elderly people can utilize them, this part is concerned with "population ageing" of school-level modern society.

Industrial Structures - Ball Bearings      The students actually touched the ball bearings provided by JTEKT Corp. Moreover, the students learned the industrial structure through the ball bearings which are one of important parts of industrial products. This part is concerned with the school-level “politics and economy”.

In order to evaluate this lecture, we asked 29 students to fill questionnaires before and after the lecture. As a result, after the lecture, 71% of the students got interested in not only Science and Technology but also Industries. Typical comments are as follows.

"Using the wheel model of railroad, I understood the driving mechanism of vehicles."

"I understood that Science and Technology were correlated well with Industries."

Thus, this lecture attracted many students in terms of both “Science and Technology” and “Industries”.

The ONG has designed new educational models for Science and Technology by cooperating with Industries. Our results indicate that the educational activity by cooperating with Industries would be effective in order to make students understand the social role and significance of Science and Technology.