The purpose of this paper is to clarify the features of whistleblowing by considering the arguments about whistleblowing in engineering ethics. First, I analyze the concept of ‘whistleblowing’ by defining the word as clearly as possible. Second, I examine the standard justification theory of whistleblowing by showing the problems of the theory. Finally, I analyze the dilemma about whistleblowing by revealing a prospective whistleblower′s struggle to choose moral value or non-moral value.

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Diversification of basic learning and nature of the students in Japan has recently become re-markable, and the decline of their capability to grasp basic concepts has become apparent. Cop-ing with such a severe situation, the faculty and staff members belonging to any of the four- or two-year colleges in Japan are burdened with serious problems of how they should teach their students. Without exception, our college is also forced to deal with various kinds of problems day after day. We have been for many years deeply interested in such problems as those related to improvements in teaching activities, and have repeated various kinds of improvements by trial and error. This paper describes our recent trial in which we tried to improve engineering education classes such as “data structures” and “introduction to multimedia” , in a slightly different way from the early one by preparing two options of question in each small test, and discusses some results obtained by the improvement.

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The present paper describes a core curriculum “Problem-Based Learning (PBL)” in the Faculty of Engineering at Utsunomiya University. The PBL is implemented to the first-grade students as an introductory engineering education, where student teams of four or five people assigned inter-departmentally attempt to solve the given problems. In order to verify effectiveness of the curriculum, some questionnaire surveys have been carried out for seven years to the students, and the results were statistically analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test and the Spearman′s rank correlation technique. As a result, effectiveness of the curriculum were confirmed as a creativity education.

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This paper shows that effects of creative education program through the development of sliding bearings in the mechanical engineering department. In this program, the sliding bearings are designed and performance assessed at project team. In the beginning, the shape of a new sliding bearing is examined and suggested. When the suggested one obtains desired performance by the simulation program that is manufactured by CAD/CAM system and Machining Center. After estimation of geometry basis on shape measure, the produced one is measured the floating distance at performance test. The student can independently experience a consecutive improvement process by doing these processes twice in this program. The result with high attendance degree of satisfaction is gotten from the questionnaire about the member of a class.

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In this paper, an educational experiment is devised about the preparation and morphology observation of two conductive polyanilines (polyaniline and poly(N-methylaniline)), which are regarded as useful advanced functional materials. This experiment enables students to provide 1) measurements of current-potential curves (cyclic voltammograms) during the electro-oxidative polymerization of the corresponding aniline monomers, 2) operation of a scanning electron microscope (SEM) device and the morphology observation of the obtained polyanilines, 3) watching the formation of the colored oligomer species, 4) confirmation of the colored films of the polyanilines. The SEM observation revealed that the surfaces of the polyanilines had leaf-like, fibrous, and spherical structures in m-order. Questionnaires were used for the students to survey attitudes to this experiment and favorable answers were obtained about 1) to 4) for the entire student. Attempt to introduce advanced functional materials such as polyanilines into an educational experiment is expected to be useful for students majoring chemistry and applied chemistry, some of who become researchers in the future.

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Project-based learning “Wind-driven transport system” simulates product development project in manufacturing industries. It is connected with a subject “quality engineering” and needs only 7.5h including the competition. The outline of the project is presented in this article. The outcomes are discussed based on more than six years experiences. The reports submitted by the students and questionnaire proved the project highly creative and effective to improve design and teamwork skills.

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This research planned and practiced “the continuous engineer education for the student by the student with the aid of an inter-regional association” , and describes the evaluation concretely. We used a newly developed vortex-rings generating equipment and the visualizing method, and visualized the eddy motion by the vortex rings ejected from an air gun. A series of equipment was exhibited in the flow dream contest 2009(sponsorship: Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, Hydrodynamics Section), and is connected to a development of new science teaching materials based on the appropriate evaluation.

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As an activity of one working group for the Good Practice at Kumamoto Univ., we proposed a questionnaire survey on understanding degree of the uppermost important points of each class in addition to the usual class-evaluation questionnaire. Each class lists three uppermost important points which are essential to understand the class contents. The understanding degree is classified into four levels ; full, most, insufficient, and not at all understandings. By analyzing the replies to 124 classes in the 2008 school year with a regression model, the understanding degrees of the bachelor students of the faculty of engineering were clarified to be affected meaningfully by degree of difficulty, effectiveness of audiovisual aids, self-study time, and attendance to class.

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Diversification of the university entrance examinations induces differences of scholastic attainments of the students. It is difficult to maintain various students′ learning motivation with interests in basic engineering education courses. We think that the students can be motivated by learning the basic course about the intellectual property. Because the knowledge level of the freshmen about the intellectual property is almost equal to each other. The knowledge about the intellectual property is very important in the industrial offices where the students will work after graduation of university. We report the survey results of the intellectual property education programs for the first-year students. The follow-up survey and some problems of the intellectual property education program are also reported.

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The first author has devised the new cooperative education program to adopt the curricula at Colleges of Technology in Japan. The program consists of the practical work programs at manufacturing industries for three weeks and two weeks in every summer and spring vacation at third to fourth grade year, to enhance the communication skill, and to acquire the practical manufacturing technology and so on. In addition, the program has the practical design project of the manufacturing industry to cultivate the problem-solving skill for the fifth grade students at last. The program has many participants that are forty industry companies and seventy students in successfully. It is found that the program is to enhance the communication skill, writing skill and self-confident as a practical engineer by the iterative work.

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A hands-on learning program linked with a lecture “Materials Processing” has been developed and executed for sophomores in mechanical engineering course in Nagoya University, under a collaboration of a professor and technical staffs. Students learn ideas of elastoplasticity, workhardening, and plastic-strain energy dissipation in metals during the lecture. Within a month after the class, students take the exercise, where three typical modes of deformation; tensile, compressive, and bending, are experienced. It is planned so that they use their own muscles and senses for deforming metals and measuring data before calculations. Obtained success and problems in the program are discussed after the first three years of the program execution.

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Although the academic ability in science such as Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry is indispensable for Engineers, the fundamental ability of freshmen in Science has recently seemed to become lower and lower. The investigation was therefore conducted to grasp what subjects on science they′ve learned before entering the university by Center for Educational Development in Science and Technology in Meijo University. This reveals that a part of freshmen has not learned the indispensable subjects to study in the university. According to the result of this investigation, the mathematical education has been first improved with the objective to raise the level of the ability of freshmen with low mathematical ability. As a result, the improvement of mathematical education yields positive effects on the freshmen with the low ability.

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The preventing accidents is the key to the success of large-scale project like the aerospace R&D. The daily life accidents data from NITE shows the no-decreasing tendency of accidents number, and JAXA has experienced the mission failures of both rocket and spacecraft in the beginning of 21st century. Some companies improve standards as counter measures for the preventing accidents. On the other hand, JAXA has been developing new set of spacecraft design standard as the preventing failures. Now, the utilization of engineering standards plays an increasingly important role as the tool of assuring the safety and mission success. This paper provide the analysis results for the effective utilization of the standard from the questionnaire survey data and discuss the nature of engineer educating program.

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The long term internship is one of special educational programs for graduate students of Graduate School of Engineering in University of Fukui. This is a collaborative program between university and industries where selected post-graduate students are dispatched to companies for a long term and educated in real business environments. It is the final goal of the program to develop sophisticated specialists who would be able to catch the business strategy in industries and solve any problems by themselves. The program is managed in a semester (6 months) and contains 1.5 month prior education of preliminary special knowledge, ethics and secrecy, about 3 month dispatch with long-term internship, and 1.5 month post-education for complementary education and presentation. This paper presents the effect of this program which has been evolving since 2005.

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In this paper, we have developed a teaching material for technical high school students to understand the control technique. The material makes the students understanding the control technique through the sensibility obtained from the experience of riding the robot. We have considered the correspondence of the teaching material with the ARCS Model. Therefore, the material aims to improve the interest and the willingness to learn mechatronics and control technique by experiencing the difference of the response by the change in the control parameters. As the results of the questionnaire to the technical high school students in the class, we have verified educative effect of the teaching material which can be improved willingness of learning and interesting for mechatronics and control technique.

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We performed a trial of experiments using photocatalytic reaction in advanced course in college of technology. Using titania, the following experiments were carried out ; decomposition of methylene blue solution, water droplet, fouling and mold preventions. From the results of a student questionnaire, about 90% of the students understood the theory of photocatalytic reaction, about 70-90% were interested in each experiment, and about 80% wanted to utilize the photocatalyst in their daily life. After the experiment, the students investigated the technology and products of the photocatalyst, and also discussed future applications.

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This research planned and practiced “the engineer education for the student by the student with the aid of an inter-regional association” . We used a newly developed paper craft modeled three dimensional upwind type wind turbines, and exhibited the paper craft for a series of regional science festivals. The paper craft is connected to a development of new science teaching materials throughout the appropriate evaluation.

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