Abstract:

The movement of science, technology, engineering, mathematics integrated education (STEM) is being promoted in many countries. Similarly in Japan, in order to promote the originality, intellectual curiosity, research interest in science, technology, mathematics of students, and to foster the next generation of leaders in science and technology, many programs such as SSH(Super Science High Schools), SPP(Science Partnership Project), and so on have been performed. However, over the years, it has been a problem in Japan that students do not actually feel the significance and usefulness of studying science. It's said that substantiality of empirical learning is important in order to let a student recognize the significance of studying science. In order to improve a student's individual skill and volition, teachers have to understand the personality of each student further, and find the time for students to face the teachers while cooperating with an organization outside of the school. However, the school hours for experimental trainings in science and technology will not be increased when it was reviewed from its circumstances of the past courses of study. Furthermore, it is difficult to conduct time-consuming experiments and training in a public junior high school due to extra costs, extra works required more than a regular lesson and teaching. Even though, most teachers have high volition and awareness about the education in the school. Therefore, effective educational materials are required in science and technology. Junior high school students are fascinated with new technology. A robot is considered to be a motivation to increase a student’s interest in science or technology. The aim of this study is to validate the effectiveness and problems of the utilization of a robot as an education material for usual classes in a public junior high school.

A collaboration science and technology class was performed in third grade of Kazokita Junior High School in Saitama, Japan, using small mobile robots as teaching materials. The number of students was 39. Ten teaching assistants volunteered. The class lesson was carried out for two hours continuously with a break of 10 minutes in between. A small mobile robot was assembled using electric parts on a bead board as an educational material in the class. The application program used to mobilize the mobile robot was S4A(Scratch for Arduino) and modified specifically for the class. The contents taught are related to the science and technology text book chapter “Information and communications technology in our life” and “Let's know a role and the function of the program”. The questionnaire surveys of the science class showed that students recognized that they made a robot by themselves and most students enjoyed the class and want to do again. As a result, the utilization of the small mobile robot as an educational material with the cooperation between a junior high school and a university was very effective not only in order to achieve the purpose of a science lesson, but also in order to evoke the interest of engineering and science.