2021 Online UK‑Japan Young Scientists Workshop
2021 marked the first Workshop we have run on line with colleagues in Japan since the programme began in 2001, maintaining as far as possible the spirit of previous face-to-face Workshops which we have run with our Japanese colleagues since 2001. This pilot online Workshop, necessarily smaller in scale than previous Workshops, has opened up many exciting online possibilities for future years, although face-to-face workshops will always play an important part in our programme.
The 2021 Online Workshop ran in the week of 19th July with post-16 students from schools in Britain and Japan working together on projects led by British and Japanese scientists. Time zone constraints meant that the students worked with their scientists in their zoom project rooms for only 3 hours a day (8.30-11.30 UK time; 16.30-19.30 Japan time) although the students worked on for longer periods as they felt able in their own time zones. One project involved some simple experimental work. Workshop programme working between timezones.
2021 Student Team Presentation Day: A 15 minute snapshot click here for the full recording
We also incorporated a Teachers’ Forum for the exchange of ideas of classroom practice between the teachers accompanying their students on-line. Not surprisingly three out of the four teacher presentations focussed on the challenges presented by Covid-19. Programme for the Teachers' Forum talks
[PDF] Programme for Workshop Opening Session
[PDF] Programme of Student Team Presentations at the end of the Workshop
[PDF] Feedback Report from Tohoku students following the Workshop
Full recordings of opening day and team presentations
Which schools?
46 Senior school students took part (22 male, 24 female; 25 UK, 21 Japan) with their teachers (who did not take part in the projects) from the following 10 schools:
- Abbeygate Sixth Form College, Bury St Edmunds
- Fukushima High School
- Hinchley Wood School, Esher
- Iwaki High School
- Kyoto Seibo Gakuin Senior High School
- Kyoto University of Education attached Senior High School
- St Mary Redcliffe and Temple School, Bristol
- The Sele School, Hertford
- Thomas Hardye School, Dorchester
- Tohoku University Young Scientist Eggs Programme (selected students from Tohoku Schools)
Which projects?
Students were divided into 5 international project teams led by scientists in Britain and Japan. These comprised:
"Chicxulub; a planetary catastrophe and what we can learn from it", with Dr Auriol Rea and Simon Crowhurst, Earth Sciences, Cambridge University. Students exploried the massive disruption of Earth's ecosystems caused by the impact of an asteroid 66 million years ago and what it can teach us about the geological behaviour of our planet, its climate and life forms today. School/home based simple experiments with marbles, mayonnaise and Python helped to reconstruct the drama.
"Climate change mitigation role for nuclear energy, yes or no?", with Prof Geraldine Thomas, Director Chernobyl Tissue Bank, Imperial College, London. In this project, the students compared and formed their own opinions on the merits of different methods of energy production, through informed debate particularly in relation to the nuclear energy option. This was particularly relevant as 2021 marked the 10th anniversary of the 2011 Tohoku Tsunami and Earthquake Disaster which caused such devastation and as Tohoku schools were represented. Also, timely as the UK would shortly be hosting COP26.
"See the Unseen" with Dr Ganesh Pandian Namasivayam, Kyoto University Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences. In today’s world there is a burst of information every field so that understanding the complexities of and underlying patterns in this big data can be very difficult. In this project, students were given a crash course in visualising big data to “See the Unseen”, in the context of an exploration of the health consequences of the covid lock-down.
"Emergency planning of port industries against future great earthquakes and tsunamis" with Dr Anawat Suppasri, Tohoku University IRIDeS, Disaster Risk Division, Tsunami Engineering Research Field. In the light of continuing tectonic activity, and focusing on Sendai port, and provided with predicted earthquake intensity, tsunami arrival time, tsunami inundation map, etc., students were asked to discuss and plan for emergency planning for different industries.
"Science Communication, producing a professional podcast of the Workshop" with Dr Eva Higginbotham and Dr Sally Le Page, Naked Scientist Team, Cambridge. Students in this team visited and interviewed the other teams in action and selected material to produce three concise professional podcasts of the Workshop which they judged would be of interest to the general public. The Naked Scientists is a spin out team of professional science communicators created by Cambridge University scientists led by Dr Chris Smith, himself a virologist. thenakedscientists.com
The three podcasts produced for this project can be listened to on the Naked Scientists Website:
Podcast 1: Nuclear reactors on the coast: do the risks outweigh the advantages?
Podcast 2: The risks of nuclear power and simulating asteroid impacts: the scientist and student perspective
Podcast 3: Myths of Mass Destruction
Support
We are delighted to acknowledge financial support in UK from The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, Mitsubishi Electric Europe, and the Japanese Women’s Association in Great Britain, and in Japan from Kyoto University of Education, and in kind from Barclays Bank. We would like to thank in particular in the UK Mrs Mary‑Grace Browning, Professor Toshio Nomura and Mr Ian Price, and in Japan Mr Takayoshi Sako and Mr Ryota Endo, without whose efforts and expertise this Workshop would not have been possible; also the project facilitator team, Ryo Mizuta, Wilf Harvey, Ga Kitada, Nagi Tateno, Nick Czepliewicz, Andrew Fox, and Koshiro Kiso who played such a central role in supporting the projects.
