A Trip to Toyota Ban Pho Factory & Chewa Pavanet Biotope

On Monday, January 20, 2020, teachers and students departed from Wells early in the morning for their visit to Toyota Ban Pho Factory and Chewa Pavanet Biotope. A joint trip with grade 12 Business Management (BM) students and grade 11 Environmental Systems and Societies (ESS) students aimed to give insight into one of the top car-making companies in the world, from their production line to their Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, including the 60 rai Biotope forest at Ban Pho.��

Student Reflections

The following excerpts from students’ reflections post trip, as well as the photos, show how important these trips are for students in experiencing the real-world application of the theories and concepts discussed in class.��

For ESS students, their focus was on understanding the aspects of the company from lenses of the sustainability compass, Nature, Economy, Society and Well-being. For BM students, their focus was on operations, but also were open to understanding other aspects of a large company including human relations and leadership.

“My family also uses a Toyota car; it was really great to know about the actions and aims from the company we bought the car from. Another take away was that there are very limited times that we get to see all the [sustainability] lenses incorporated… and it was great to clearly see and understand all the perspectives of the sustainability compass through this trip.” -Shradha, ESS

“Many people from outside the company may not see or know what goes on in the factory — that is why i found it a great learning experience. I was surprised with how clean the factory is, as I always viewed factories to be dirty with poor working conditions. Overall, I feel trips like this should happen again to educate [about] sustainability through the business.” -Justin, ESS

“It was fun – we got to explore and see a lot of environmentally friendly stuff. … Asking Toyota employees in a Q&A was good…they answered questions [about] shifts, resources, and about carbon emissions.” –Kevin, ESS

Overall, it was a great experience to have the opportunity to visit the biggest automotive manufacturer in Asia Pacific and to be able to see the operation system in a real world industry, while keeping mindful with the environmental impact like carbon dioxide emissions. –Ivy, BM��

“I have always thought factories would emit the most amount of greenhouse gasses and would not care about the environment, but today I saw and learned that car factories are working hard to decline the amount of GHG they emit by creating eco forests and making hybrid cars.” -SeungEun, ESS

“Receiving the opportunity to explore the production process of Toyota company was an incredible experience. Not only getting the chance to gain primary source and first hand experience with the assembly but get to understand the working environment and notice the culture in the business…this experience has made me see the bigger image of how every section of the business relates to each other. For instance, adapting the whole business for a new product will affect HR, Finance, Marketing, Production and Operation in various ways.” –Zarina, BM��

Field trip to Toyota was very surprising to me as I’ve never been to a car factory before. Until today, I’ve never thought about how difficult and complex it is to manufacture a car and I’ve ridden a car for granted without thinking much about the process behind the production. By observing the whole process at the assembly shop, I’ve realized how much work and effort are required to produce one car….Overall, the trip was very conducive to my business education as I’ve learned how the company actually deals with its operations, human resources, and marketing via CSR: hands-on experiences are best in learning. Thank you so much Ms. Lee for giving this opportunity for our education!

-Suin, BM

Special Acknowledgement & Appreciation

Wells would like to humbly thank Toyota for their willingness to open the plant tour and for giving our students access to new learning in the real world.

We also would like to thank the��three tour guides who held an informative Q&A session with students asking them difficult questions! And thank you to Chewa Pavanet for hosting the students for a tour in the Biotope that was interactive and fun, and insightful into beneficial plants of the forest and the importance of preserving and protecting the forests and its organisms.��

Photo credit in this post goes to��Naiyana Promoudom.

And finally, a special thank you to the chaperones: Ms. Katherine, Ms. Lee and Mr. Ryan, as well as the students who contributed their Thai-English translation skills to help their classmates understand.

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ESS students test soil quality at Wells Bang Na Farm

Project-based Learning with Environmental Systems and Societies in collaboration with Wells Bang Na Campus

In September, the grade 11 and 12 students of Environmental Systems and Societies (ESS) course collaborated with Wells Bang Na campus to investigate the soil quality of their farm. Each year, Bang Na students plant various crops with their teachers at the farm next to Wells kindergarten building with varying success in productivity. Presented with the problem of improving crop productivity, Wells On Nut Campus students prepared an investigation into the qualities of soil to determine appropriate steps that may be taken at the Bang Na campus farm.��

The collaboration was led by grade 12 students, who designed the investigation as preparation for their IB Internal Assessment (IA) under their instructor Mr. Chase, after an initial visit to the Bang Na farm in early September. Grade 11 ESS students undertook the investigation in four teams to collect soil samples throughout the various crop beds and carry out soil tests in the lab. Soil samples were also collected and will be returned to the Biology and Chemistry labs for further analysis. For the final step, a presentation will be created to inform the Bang Na students and teachers of the findings and suggestions for how the Bang Na campus farm will be able to�� improve crop productivity. We will look forward to sharing that news in a future post!��

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Guest Speaker, Dr. Chapagain

Special Thanks

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Experiential learning – Global issues in a local context

Connections with UN Sustainable Development Goal 6: Water and Sanitation

In 2015, the UN set 17 goals for sustainable development worldwide known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). At Wells, our mission is to foster global citizenship in our students and build awareness of the issues so that each student becomes responsible global citizens. One goal that can be easily overlooked in a country that gets more than 1500 mm of rainfall on average a year is Goal 6: Water and Sanitation (read more at the UN SDGs site ).

To explore this issue on a local level the grade 12 Environmental Systems and Societies class went to the Metropolitan Water Works Samsen water plant. By building further awareness within our students of water management at a local city level, this can contribute to one of the SDG targets for Goal 6: “Support and strengthen the participation of local communities in improving water and sanitation management” (, 2015). The objectives of the visit was to expose students to the process behind water sanitation practices within Bangkok to better understand this SDG from a local perspective, and help students reflect upon their own impacts at a personal level.

Student Reflections

Before the trip, many students admitted they are not aware of their daily water usage nor are they aware of how the water is managed or processed or distributed throughout Bangkok. Below are a series of their reflections after visiting the plant:

“I learnt the process of the fresh water system. It was something fascinating to learn where I get the water from….MWA has been managing this for a long time and how they solve some of the problems they face was something I didn’t expect….I used to think that Bangkok has enough water and that we were not going through any crisis. Now I understand that conserving water is rather important because water is being polluted, and the freshwater resource is decreasing. So start now before exit gets late.” – Rushitha

“At first, I thought that Bangkok water was always dirty because they don’t have a proper filtration process. But today, I realized that they do actually have professional treatment process. The person at the MWA said that we can actually drink the tap water. I’ve learned there are various processes in treating the water to be sent to houses or apartments… including Chlorine used for disinfectant, Alum used for removing fine particles…and polymers used for sedimentation.” – Soohee

“The trip to Samsen really allowed me to understand where my water is coming from. More importantly though, it made me realize how limited this resource is. The most interesting part of this trip was during Q&A when the staff revealed that the tap water in Bangkok is actually safe to drink according to WHO standards, however there is – and has always been – such a stigma around drinking it.” – Amy

“The trip to the Samsen Water Authority Trip was so beneficial for me as it gave me the opportunity to investigate and inquire more into the water purification process and factors that affect it, a topic on which I am basing my individual investigation on. It was really interesting to see how the MWA is taking steps to make their purification process more environmentally friendly. However, the best part about the trip was when we sat in a meeting room and got the time to ask them questions…” – Jai

After we visited, students collected water bills from their homes to better understand the amount of water they consume and the cost. Many were shocked by the amount of water each person uses and the low cost of water. By sharing their story, we all wish for everyone in the Wells community to consider his or her water usage to save both water and energy that goes into the filtration process.

Written by: Ms. Katherine & IB ESS Year 2 Students

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