Practice of Programming Education in the Field of Electricity Oriented to STEAM Education in an Elementary School

Programming education has been mandated in elementary schools in Japan since 2020. The Courses of Study indicate that programming should be incorporated into the field of electricity in science, emphasizing energy as a social issue and promoting the use of sensors and computers in education. This aligns with the integrated level of STEAM education. This study designed a programming learning activity focused on electric circuits to promote efficient energy use and developed teaching materials for students. Subsequently, the class practice was conducted, and the effects of the developed teaching materials and learning activities on the students were discussed from the perspective of STEAM educational practices through a quantitative text analysis. Consequently, the teaching materials provided an opportunity to learn integrated software and hardware, and the students showed an awareness of the devices around them that were controlled by programming. Meanwhile, the children were so focused on completing the program and building the circuit that they paid insufficient attention to the objective of exploring “ingenious ways to use energy without wasting it,” which had been set as an advanced integration goal of STEAM education.