In this study, to evaluate the performance of a sliding sharpness-measuring apparatus for the cutting edge of plane iron, we performed a quantitative evaluation by using the apparatus and observed the surface condition of the cutting edge in detail. The validity of this evaluation was verified by comparing and examining both results of the quantitative evaluation and the observed surface condition. In this apparatus, the plane iron was fixed on a base, and the sharpness of the cutting edge was then measured based on the depth of the cut, which was generated by sliding a wood sample down along the slope and colliding it with the fixed cutting edge. The surface condition of the cutting edge was observed using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). As a result, a remarkable correlation was found between the quantitative evaluation using the apparatus and the result of the surface observation using the SEM for the sharpness of the cutting edge of the plane. Therefore, using this apparatus is appropriate for the evaluation of the sharpness of a cutting edge.

For this study, the author clarified changes in the characteristics of the information ethics content in Technology and Home Economics textbooks, which were written based on the curriculum for the junior high school subject Technology and Home Economics. The curriculum was first announced in 2008, and the textbooks were published in 2012 and 2016. The author considered how these textbooks can be used in the classroom. The author analyzed the information ethics content of “Chapter D: Technology of information processing" from four perspectives: “category," “content items," “distribution," and “presentation method." The author also conducted an interview survey with a textbook company. The results showed that in 2016, all three textbook publishing companies increased the amount of content significantly, and improved their textbooks by adding more commentary. All three textbook publishing companies have enhanced the content and methods of explanation on information morality, even though the textbooks were published under the same course of study.

It is important to grasp the relationship between earthquakes and volcanic activity in order to understand the importance of science and technology for disaster prevention and mitigation. It is possible to visualize topographic changes by interfering with synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data, which involves Earth observation obtained by SAR onboard satellites. This study aims to develop and implement science, technology, and disaster prevention education in secondary schools using the outcomes of Earth observation, and to determine the effectiveness of such education. Based on the pre- and post-learning evaluations of the class, an analysis considering the relationship between science, technology, disaster prevention, and students’ interests, knowledge, experiences, skills, as well as the findings of the chronological self-learning evaluation, indicated the usefulness of this education.

This paper, which is based on the enhancement of measurement and control learning in the new commentary on educational guidelines, developed a teaching material that enables system conception learning and demonstration of measurement and control systems in daily life. The developed teaching material can be combined with various sensors and actuators to form measurement and control systems. By integrating interface functions on one board and using a PC instead of a microcomputer as the computer responsible for measurement and control functions, it is possible to develop clarification and visualization of the constituent elements of the measurement and control system and the learning that takes into consideration the instruction on the computer and the interface. Configurable systems include airflow control for air conditioners and vehicle collision prevention systems. We evaluated the effectiveness of our teaching material on learning how the measurement and control system works through verification lessons. The results of the questionnaire answered by students and worksheet's descriptions suggest the effectiveness of our teaching material, which makes it easy to visually understand the system, and enables multiple simulations.

The new revised government course guidelines stipulate include the enhancement of autonomous, interactive and deep learning as a new condition. According to the guidelines, for example, linguistic activities, observation, experimentation, and project-based learning are required. Not only enhancing activities but also creating interest leads to “autonomous, interactive, and deep learning”. For this study, we focused on passive walking, which we applied to toys to foster children’s interest. In a previous study, we developed quadrupedal passive walking paper toys as a teaching material. further, we clarified these toy’s educational value and usage by analyzing the inquiry activities of university students. For this study, we examined the inquiry activities of 5^th grade students at an elementary school based on three dimensions: (1) motivation before learning, (2) the content of learning, and (3) interest after learning. The students made the toys and observed their walking motion; the toys were improved after the experiment. We administered a questionnaire survey to the students and their parents after the class. As for the survey responses, the respondents stated that the students carried out an experiment and improved the toys at home. The outcomes demonstrated that the toys attracted students’ interest, and they remained interested after the class.

This article proposed a series of models of biological technology governance review learning and guidance processes that capture technology considering the relationship between existing breeding organisms and technological development, and society at the previous stage of problem-solving in the technology subject from the viewpoint of emphasizing cooperation between STEAM disciplines, including language proficiency and emphasis on metacognitive ability. This paper proposed a learning guidance process model and designed a curriculum to develop the model through conception, practice, and evaluation, and it verified its effects. The ratio of each “A" standard was <70% in the viewpoints and ways of thinking about the biological-breeding technology and the evaluation criteria of thinking, judgment, and expression related to technological governance. From the student worksheet description, it was suggested that it is important to relate it to the experience of learning about the improvement of skills such as breeding in the fifth-grade elementary school social studies. In addition, as the result of a confirmatory factor analysis, “conceptual knowledge about the target concept of biological breeding technology" and “metacognitive ability" were found to have a weak but significant inter-factorial correlation (r = .39). In the model, it was suggested that metacognitive ability and acquisition of conceptual knowledge may interact.

High school mathematics needs to reflect on the learning process, the process of understanding mathematical problems from real-life phenomena and solving them mathematically. Therefore, there is a need for teaching materials, including mathematical activities that move back and forth between real phenomena and mathematical abstraction. In our most recent study, we examined mathematical activities in engineering and technology and presented some teaching materials for the new subject “Inquiry-Based Study of Science and Mathematics” and STEM. In this paper, we studied salt mountains as the teaching materials of mathematical activities and performed the teaching practice using the mathematical activity “Salt Mountains” for high school students. In addition, we will clarify the characteristics and educational value of the teaching material through practice, analyze the ridgeline of some kinds of salt mountains that have never been elucidated by previous studies, and introduce mathematical activities involving numerical calculation.

This study established a lesson model for junior high school Technology and Home Economics (Technology Department) with the aim to develop the technological innovation ability through a technological governance review lesson, using the system of medical/nursing technology as a subject. In addition, we attempted to apply the model. We constructed the material for 18 hours and conducted a post-survey on the technological innovation ability. As a result, all 35 teams were able to develop a product model based on the development concept determined by each team, and on the needs of users and the seeds of the team. In Survey 1 and 2,83.8% and 50% of the students, respectively, were deemed satisfied. It was shown that the developed lesson model and practice were effective in enhancing students' technological innovation ability.

In today’s era of rapid advancements in science and technology, each citizen is required to have technical governance, or the ability to focus on the advantages and disadvantages of technology, as well as to assess, select, and make decisions about technology. According to the New Course of Study, the area of “social development and technology” includes “learning that evaluates technology, considers appropriate selection and management/operation, improvement based on new ideas, and application.” In a previous study, we focused on “information technology” and “civics in social studies,” summarized important concepts, and discussed the possibility of interdisciplinary cooperation. In this paper, we center on the learning of technology related to information. From the angle of technology governance/innovation, we examined classes that foster problem-solving, discoverability, creativity, and technology literacy, which are necessary for the formation and participation of a sustainable society. We analyzed students’ freestyle descriptions of a lesson conducted at several schools in Miyagi Prefecture. Further, we clarified the results and problems of the lesson.

Information morals have been taught in junior high schools as part of information and communication technology (ICT) and technology education. However, there is a lot of learning through case studies of “good” and “bad” from an ethical point of view, and the effect is not sufficient because it is difficult to be self-aware. In this study, we developed teaching materials aimed at promoting students’ self-awareness and fostering ethical values in junior high school ICT and technology education. We attempted to nurture students’ sense of ethics by developing reading materials on the theme of copyright, dealing with social cases with no clear right answer, rather than a two-way judgment of good or bad. We put one set of lessons into practice with second graders at a junior high school and evaluated the teaching materials that we developed from the perspectives of morality and ethics. As a result, when we compared their morality before and after the lessons, there were significant differences regarding the following aspects: “moral judgment” and “moral motivation” and “moral attitude.” Moreover, there was also a significant difference in “the attitude of continuing to think about a moral issue,” and it could be confirmed by improving ethics through text mining of free description.

Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) does not specify the programming language to be used in classes in its education guidelines (revised in 2019), but teacher training materials do mention some Python programs. However, Python has various programming environments, and the guidelines do not stipulate which ones to use in the high school curriculum. Therefore, in this study, in programming education using Python, we conducted lessons using different programming environments for each class. The purpose was to compare the educational effects of different programming environments in high school programming education. From the outcomes of the ARCS evaluation sheet, the pre-post questionnaire, and the confirmation test, good results tended to appear in the TextFile format among the programming environments. In particular, Jupyter Lab (TextFile) and Spyder can produce a deep educational impact compared to other programming environments.