2025 Volume 65 Issue 3 Pages 647-655
STEM/STEAM education is spreading worldwide, and the introduction of engineering into science is being promoted. Therefore, we implemented a class on electrical resistance that introduced the engineering design process in the lower secondary school science unit “Current and its applications” and analyzed the effects of the lesson on the students’ learning. By incorporating the engineering design process into science class, it is possible to experience trial and error and optimization in manufacturing. In this study, after learning the relationship between current and voltage (Ohm’s law) following the sequence of the textbook (Arima et al., 2018), we included an activity to design a resistor using scientific concepts. We also held a class in which students learned about combined resistance and resistance dependence on materials by drawing on what they had learned in resistor design. To enable the students’ successful design of resistors, we developed a teaching material that uses a conductive sheet (Okubo et al., 2023) to adjust the brightness of LEDs through engineering design. We planned a class that corresponds to the engineering design process based on the analysis of the NGSS-compliant science textbook “Elevate Science” (Ohta and Uchinokura, 2019). As a result of the practical implementation of the lesson at a public lower secondary school, students could use the knowledge they had learned about resistance to conduct creative activities and design a variety of resistors. The results of questionnaire surveys confirmed that understanding of what had already been learned about electrical circuits was reinforced, and that awareness of the importance and usefulness of the learning content had also increased.
