- Social Contribution Activities -
Engineers Give Lessons to Junior High School Students: Using Cameras to Teach the Principles of Light

The Sony Group utilizes its products, content, technology, employees, and partnerships to engage in social contribution activities around the world under the slogan "For the Next Generation."
In line with the Group's policy, Sony Corporation (SEC) also provides educational support activities for children with the goal of contributing to society via Sony's unique technologies and services. As part of these activities, SEC has been working with an NPO since last fiscal year to develop lessons for junior high school students that will nurture science and technology talents, and we have also sent our engineers into schools to teach these classes.

(Learning with Cameras! The principles of light and image processing technology)

The overarching theme of the lesson is science, but it also touches upon digital education and future careers. In their role as teachers, employees explain how their work at Sony relates to the principles that the students learn in classes. Using a camera, the students engage in hands-on learning about the nature of light, how lenses work, and image processing technology, all the while connecting back to their first-year science lessons on lenses. The ultimate goal is to provide students with an idea of what it is like to work in a science-related job.

About the lesson

The lesson lasts 50 minutes. It contains information on light that students studied as first year junior high school students, and also expands beyond that to cover unfamiliar areas such as image sensors and image processing. Therefore, the lesson includes hands-on learning time to make it easier for students to understand the underlying concepts in the limited time available.

(Students were surprised by how differently things look through different lenses, such as telephoto and zoom lenses.)

The lesson incorporates various hands-on activities, such as handling and examining an image sensor and a cutaway model of a lens (cut in half to reveal the cross-section), as well as taking photos with an Xperia smartphone to learn about the multiple cameras installed in smartphones.

Feedback from participating students

Last fiscal year, we gave lessons at three junior high schools (a total of 313 students). The following are a few comments taken from the follow-up questionnaire given to participating students.

• I learned how physics topics, such as light, are connected to the development of cameras, and it inspired me to be more diligent in my studies.
• I knew that cameras contained multiple lenses, but I didn't realize that there were so many and that they were arranged in such a complex way. I was also surprised to learn that smartphone cameras have a similarly complex structure.
• I learned that cameras contain something called an image sensor. I found it interesting that this component that you should never touch is responsible for sensing color intensity and that it can sense color itself with a filter.

(Students listened attentively to the Sony engineers.)

SEC will continue to support children's education through school visits.