Development of Energy and Environment Education Program and Teaching Aids for Upper Grade of Elementary School by Effective Utilization of Regional Collaboration

Abstract

Energy and environment education learning unit for upper grade of elementary school was developed and carried out. A regional collaboration among elementary schools, universities and municipal governments was utilized to develop the learning unit effectively. The learning unit was proposed based on the analysis using questionnaires done to the sixth grade students in Yahaba-Higashi elementary school. The results of the analysis revel that the 78% students acquire the knowledge about energy and environment by the previous times of synthetic learning. However, the students do not have strong motivation to act for remediation of the energy and environmental circumstances, whereas they have rich-knowledge about those issues. Based on the analysis, the learning unit of energy and environment was designed with focusing to get the skill through the demonstrational experiment developed and/or arranged by academic staffs in Iwate University and in Yahaba-Higashi elementary school. The designed learning unit consists two courses; one is electricity production learning and the other is fuel cell learning. The detail of two courses is shown in Table 1. The designed learning program was carried out as time of synthetic learning for sixth grade students in Yahaba-Higashi elementary school and was evaluated by questionnaires. The results showed the designed energy and environment learning program motivated to act locally for sustainable development as shown in Fig. 1. Table 1.