Technology of nurturing living things became mandatory for the first time in 33 years following the 2008 guidelines regarding junior high school study guidance. However, due to the long selection period, the attendance rate is low, while there are also other problems such as a lack of teaching experience and teaching materials. Therefore, in this study, we focused on schools in urban areas where it is difficult to secure farmland. Results showed that there were many teachers who thought that the facilities were insufficient, while a high percentage of teachers who were positive regarding plant factories were providing instruction on items such as the relationship between biological development and society and the development of new technologies. In addition, it became clear that emphasis was placed on understanding and connecting to society, as well as nurturing the ability to contribute to innovation.

The purpose of this paper was to survey the current state and matters of handicraft education in Finland. We also investigated how Japanese technology education could be improved. Handicraft education (Swedish: slöjd) was established in the late 19th century by Uno Cygnaeus and spread around the world. In recent years, the national core curriculum for basic education has been reformed. There are no previous studies that have investigated and studied education that conforms to the new curriculum. In this study，we investigated the current state of Finnish handicraft education through a study of papers，visiting schools, and interviewing teachers in Finland. In this study we found that handicraft education is mainly focused on children's manufacturing. In addition, we found that class-room facilities in Finland have rooms for painting and welding, which are typically not found in schools in Japan. We suggest that Japan should consider a more child-centered activities, study curriculum.

The aim of this study was to develop a free-standing metal-pipe hammock and to investigate its effectiveness as a teaching material in junior high school technology and home economics lessons. While understanding structural strength is as important as understanding the strength of different types of materials, it is difficult for junior high school students to learn about structural strength. However, assembling a structure whose purpose is to sustain its own weight can help them understand the mechanism of structural strength. We developed a free-standing hammock that students assembled by putting together metal pipes, thus creating an object that sustained its own weight. We found that our free-standing hammock was effective in teaching students how to work with metals, as well as the principles of design and structural strength.

In a previous report, we developed a simulated POS (Point of sales) system teaching aid for “activities to solve issues in daily life and society through programing interactive contents using the network" in technology education of a Japanese middle school course of study in 2017 and confirmed its effectiveness. However, this previous aid has encountered problems such as the inability to program iterative processes and a low degree of freedom in programing. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to develop programing teaching aids that can help instruct about the mechanism and features of the interactive information systems with a chatbot as an example and build a chatbot system with a database as interactive contents using the network. When we asked technology education teachers to test the aids in teacher training, they confirmed that they generally corresponded to the course of study and were applicable to lessons.

In this study, we developed a rocking wooden toy as a teaching material for early childhood education. The rocking toy, which has a glass ball in the body, goes down the slope using the potential energy. We implemented childcare practice using the toy and clarified the educational effects. The toy was developed as a teaching material to make use of familiar materials, such as glass balls, wood, and cork sheets, including the contents of the five areas presented in the aim and contents of the kindergarten education guidelines. Using the toy, we implemented childcare practice for older children in kindergarten. They chamfered the wooden parts with sandpaper, put together the rocking toy with tools, decorated it with color papers and spangles, and then played with the toy. They took the toy home and played with it with their families. We asked the children's parents or guardians to complete a questionnaire survey. We clarified the educational effects of the teaching material by observing the children's behaviors in practice, analyzing pictures drawn by the children, and using the questionnaire survey of their parents or guardians.

The purpose of this study was to clarify the effects of trial and error in the learning of LED control programming within junior high school technology education. For this purpose, we set two types of classes for experimental practice. Students in Class 1 attended classes that focused on trial and error learning methods for programming. In contrast, students in the Class 2 input correct programing under classroom instruction from the teacher. Based on these practices, we analyzed students' reactions through their comments about impressions of their learning experiences (freely descripting). As a result of text mining, it was found that the Class 1 students had a feeling of difficulty in programming, but they also had a positive feeling and a sense of acquisition of knowledge and skills. In addition, it was shown that students in both classes felt that they both acquired a sense of trial and error. However, compared to Class 2 students, Class 1 students recognized that they had obtained the ability to create solutions through analysis of the structure, ability to use tools necessary for work, and ability to configure solutions for themselves as they desired.

Programming education will be introduced into elementary schools in 2020. Although there are many reports on programming education for elementary school pupils, there are few materials to teach programming concepts. Therefore, we developed programming workbooks for children. Pupils can learn programming concepts by thinking about the answer in these workbooks. In this paper, we report lessons using workbooks in an elementary school. Using a pre-test and post-test, we confirmed that second-grade pupils were able to learn some basic programming concepts.

There are few studies on renewable energy other than solar, wind, and hydroelectric power generation in school education, and teaching materials for learning energy from various angles are necessary. Therefore, as a teaching material for technology courses in junior high school, we focused on solar heat, which is a renewable energy source, and we developed a desalination system with low environmental impact. The developed desalination equipment uses an endothermic tube in solar water heaters to obtain fresh water by distillation, and a CPC-type reflector is attached to efficiently concentrate sunlight. The energy conversion efficiency was 43.9% from the experiment involving distillation amount measurement by the desalination equipment. In addition, we considered the problems as teaching materials for this equipment.