Akashi National College of Technology is a 5-year school and students are 15-20 years old. The college has no Department of Chemistry, and so to students only few classes of chemistry are offered. No class of biology is offered at all. A class of biochemistry, however,is offered to the fifth grade students. It is elective and offered 15 classes semi-annually. From the curriculum through the fourth grade, students have no knowledge of biology and poor knowledge of basic chemistry. Naturally it is difficult to teach biochemistry to such students who do not understand chemical reactions.?Accordingly, the policy of teaching biochemistry in this College is focused on making students interesting to biochemistry continuously throughout their life rather than on giving them detailed biochemical knowledge. The class of biochemistry is therefore relied greatly on experiments. Saponification of oil, namely manufacturing of soap, occupies larger parts of the class of biochemistry in experiments.

The purpose of this curriculum is described as follows:

(1) By doing experiments students are required to obtain knowledge of chemical reagents and way of handling them and controlling their safety. Since the reagent composition of the experiments of saponifying an oil is set individually by each student, there may take place unexpected reactions, and then training to respond and overcome the incident properly is expected.
(2) By writing report on the experiments, students learn the way of writing technical papers according to the style of the American Chemical Society. At the same time, it is expected, through handling experimental materials and planning experiments, that students understand the influence of technology on the nature and environment. Training is also intended, in social and economical interests, to study the relation of industrialization and management by doing cost accounting on the soap obtained by the experiments.

Sodium hydroxide and oil are allowed to react at so low temperature below 104 degree Fahrenheit (=40 degrees centigrade) and the aging thereafter is allowed to proceed slowly over 8 weeks at ordinary temperature. By this manner the process of the reaction can be observed in detail. In addition, low temperature reaction produces a soap with high quality.

Students are forbidden to sell the soap manufactured in the experiments, but are allowed to use it as a gift. The gift has often highly evaluated by their girl friends and the fact provides them with motivation of eager performance of the experiments. I have heard positive comments by students who studied the experiments. Examples are as follows: “In the next
opportunity I wish to do the experiments with such an oil containing much oleic acid which is difficultly oxidized,” and “It may be interesting to design soaps as a part of the total design of bathroom (a student of Department of Architecture).” In conclusion it appears that my purpose of making students interesting to biochemistry has largely been achieved.