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The ten Student Teams gave public presentations of the outcomes of their week's exploration at the University of Bristol on the afternoon of Friday 27 July in the presence of invited guests Professor Colin Blakemore FRS (Professor of Physiology, University of Oxford and Chairman of Council, British Association for the Advancement of Science) and Professor Marie Conte-Helm (Director General, the Daiwa Foundation). Their comments at the time (below) give a flavour of the quality of the student team presentations, many of which used Powerpoint.
Thank you very much. It's very good to be here. I am looking forward to seeing the outcome of the events today. I hope there will be more to say at the end of the session than the beginning of the session. But there are a couple of remarks I would like to make.
First of all, it is remarkable to see such a wide representation of schools from this country and also of course from Japan here. I gather from Eric that many of you come like me from families where you do not have a long tradition of people going on to university yet. But I hope this experience has stimulated many of you to think about the value of that experience and in cultivating and stimulating your minds. Science is universal enterprise. It is one of the few activities in life where everyone speaks in a same language in a way that everyone understands the basic concepts. For an active scientist like me who worked in many laboratories around the world including in the Keio University in Tokyo many years ago. It is fantastic to be able to walk into a laboratory anywhere and begin to work immediately knowing that you understand what your collaborators and colleagues understand having this common language. One of the purposes of this event is certainly to bring together the very different social cultures and show that how much you can share together in understanding science.
Eric has thanked for sponsors of this event. I think the last thing I shall say at this stage is thanks to Eric himself. He is an enormously energetic person and very persuasive. He is very good at persuading people to do things as you yourself might have discovered. He is not only good at organising the practical facilities and so on; it seems he can also organise the weather for this week. So you should be very happy to have the chance to spend a week in Bristol in such a wonderful circumstance. I hope you all enjoyed the experience enormously and I look forward to seeing the outcome of your activities. Thank you.
My first impression is how could all of this be done in just a week. It is simply amazing to see what you have achieved. Most of us in science working in laboratories have to think in terms of months and even years to come up with something interesting. You all of the teams achieved in just a few days.
I was very struck, as anyone watching this would be, by the enthusiasm of the members of the teams, especially the relationships between the British and Japanese participants. I think it demonstrates very well how useful, practical and collaborative projects can be in learning. I am sure all of you agree that doing these projects together is a better way of learning about subjects, in some cases on very difficult subjects, than listening to a lecture or reading from a textbook. I am very glad that, as Eric said at the beginning, we don't have to give any prizes today or make any judgements. It would have been extremely difficult to distinguish between the qualities. They were all so good. I am going to say a word or two about each project to show you that I was listening!
The first of all, the Wild Life Conservation Project: I thought it was an excellent project to use resources that you have available to you. You made some very valid comments on issues of climate change, of threat to the environment and endangered species. I know you have been very busy this week. But I hope you weren't too busy to hear the Kyoto Accord has been finally agreed between all of the participating countries except one. It is worth saying in this group that it was in the end absolutely essential that Japan should agree. Without Japan the whole treaty would have collapsed. So this is an opportunity to thank the Japanese Government for finally joining the Convention.
The Aeronautics Team: They amply demonstrated their ability to deal with the technical problems right at the start (there was a problem with the powerpoint projector). I have to say that once it started it was a brilliant project and a brilliant presentation. I very much liked the combination of the graphics and the movies. It must be very exciting to learn more about the interplay between the high quality science and technology development of the real and crucially important in product.
The Archaeology Team: We have to admit that Archaeology Team was the hardest working team of the whole group. I guess digging holes is a lot of fun. It was good to see that you discovered yourselves the importance of science - a really advanced science in archaeology.
The Chemistry Team: This is really sophisticated technical project which is very impressive in the level that was reached. I must say it was remarkable to think that you could get to the level of producing your own electron scanning microscopy in a few days.
The Earthquake Team: It is obviously very important practical question which for that reason alone must have been interesting and exciting for the Japanese participants. It was a really good example of the way in which scientific discovery can be found; the combination of building, designing models, serious engineering questions and finally the ultimate test of seeing how they could stand up to the rigours of that shaking table test.
The Environment Team: I was very impressed by the resourcefulness of the Team. I have to say that it was a beautiful piece of analysis of something that looks like even a trivial question. It is hard to believe that you dealt so many interesting issues-biodiversity, crime, recycling- here in Bristol in just a few days. Especially my congratulations on designing your own questionnaire which you used in the project.
The Medical Ethics Team: It was a complicated question and it was great to see the way in which the individuality in the group cultural differences and backgrounds came out in their analysis of that really difficult problem of genetic testing.
The Science through Theatre: If there was a prize for dancing, it is clear who will win. I think that presentation was so exciting. You all agree that the attention of the audience was so elevated during that performance. It showed very well how theatre and indeed other forms of the arts can help us to get a new view on scientific problems. This is just my personal observation that the Y Touring theatre group which help that presentation is doing wonderful things in Britain to use theatre to introduce people to scientific problems who otherwise never think about them.
The Space Science Team: I have to congratulate them that they took only ten minutes for their presentation. They were very worried how they were going to deal with it less than one hour. It was terrific to see the interchange with NASA, the use of the video link, and even clearly telling the NASA scientists something that interested them. The maths was very impressive, I have to say. I didn't check the equation... we will do that afterwards.
The Vulcanology Team: This is very topical in the light of the eruption of Mt Etna. This was scientifically a very impressive presentation. The presentation and the depth of analysis of the data; again impossible to believe that you could have done it in a week.
Finally a few thoughts. The quality of the presentations, the way in which they were delivered, the Powerpoint which I haven't learnt yet... it was brilliant to see how you could do that as well in the time. It was great.
Thank you all the facilitators for your hard work done behind these presentations. Eric has already thanked the sponsors for this meeting. Without their support this workshop would not have been possible. It is a good opportunity to thank those who made it possible for you to enjoy this week. We must also thank Eric who has invested so much time for this event.
I have three daughters myself, one is scientist, another is a computer programmer, and the other one is being trained to be a nurse. So I have a strong personal interest in opportunities for women, particularly in science. In that context it is fantastic to see that more than half of the participants here are women, three of the teams were 100% women. I have to say that I have a feeling that women have been in charge today. Finally, thanks to you all the hard work you have done, you entertained us very well this afternoon. You can go back to your home wherever you came from and be very proud of yourselves and what you have achieved. Thank you.
Like Professor Blakemore, I am simply amazed what you have accomplished during the course of just one week and in your presentation this afternoon, I would like to begin to congratulating you all for what has been a fascinating afternoon for me. It is not often that we who represent the funding bodies have an opportunity in the space of an afternoon to get a real sense of how a project has worked. It is quite clear that this has been a tremendous success. It is also clear that our money has been very well spent. So I am specially pleased about that. Of course I knew it would be. Because in talking to Eric Albone over a year ago - quite a long time ago - I could see the energy and enthusiasm that he would bring to the project. So I would like to extend my congratulations and thanks to him and to his Japanese collaborators - his various collaborators, particularly The Chemical Society of Japan.
I learned a lot about different fields of science this afternoon. But what has struck me deeply is how much you all have learned, not just about subjects that you have been working on but also about each other's cultures, each other's life styles and even language. From the point of view of Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation given that our focus is on encouraging the increase of understanding between Britain and Japan, this has been a considerable achievement. Thank you all very much.
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