Developing Future Leaders Social Contribution Activities

Since 2010, the company has been holding school classes for students in sixth grade at elementary schools in the eastern part of Iwata city in Shizuoka prefecture, where our head office is located. Since 2016, we have been holding “Electric Vehicle Classes” aligning with that sixth graders learn about electricity in their regular school curriculum. This year we shared the excitement of science and monozukuri with 141 sixth graders.

Kazuhiro Kawata of the Shizuoka Blue Revs, coming off the 2022 season of Rugby League One, served as the teacher in the science lab. While teaching them about the effects of global warming, he led the children in experiments in making electricity using everyday objects such as one- and ten-yen coins, salt water and kitchen paper. He also taught them the structure of a motor that revolves through the power of electromagnetism.

They then held a test-ride event featuring electric wheelchairs and electrically power assisted bicycles in the gymnasium. There, the children experienced how the electricity and motors they had just learned about were useful in people's lives, and they made comments such as “It was amazing how it took off like the wind with the assist when the switch was turned on,” and “I was surprised at the precise movements of the electric wheelchair.”

The lecture provided an opportunity for them to understand the causes and effects of global warming, the various initiatives going on in society to reduce carbon dioxide and the rising exceptions of electricity and motor technology in these circumstances.