Disclaimer: machine translated by DeepL which may contain errors.
Report on the 1st School of Science Café
Yuichi Iino (Director of Public Relations / Professor, Department of Biological Sciences)
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| Science Café 2021 Information Poster |
The first "School of Science Café" (Faculty of Science Science Café) was held on Sunday, February 7, 2021, amid extreme restrictions on international exchange due to the Corona Disaster. This is an English-language exchange program that the Public Relations Office has been working on for some time as part of the internationalization of the Graduate School of Science. The event was open to both high school and undergraduate students, and was held online with a limited number of people registering in advance. Although the time schedule was difficult to set due to the time difference, this time it was held from 10:00 to 12:00, and two lecturers from Graduate School presented science topics, followed by a question-and-answer session. More than half of the 41 participants were from Japan, and many were students from international schools. Other participants came from Germany, Colombia, the U.S., and India. In order to create a casual atmosphere of a café, the event would normally have been held with refreshments, but this time we arranged to send snacks and tea bags to the domestic participants in advance.
The program began with a talk by Professor Masashi Yokoyama of the Department of Physics on "Unlocking the secrets of the universe - by observing tiny, elusive neutrinos," explaining what neutrinos are and how to detect such invisible particles. He explained in detail what neutrinos are, how to detect such tiny, invisible particles, and what we can learn from them. Next, Associate Professor Jun Ohashi of the Department of Biological Sciences (at the time of the opening) gave a presentation entitled "Mathematical modeling approach to infectious diseases," in which he explained the infection method of the coronavirus, which is an immediate enemy of humankind, and explained the simulation of infection and what can be said from it. The lecture was followed by a lively question-and-answer session, and the results of the session were reported by the audience. The active question-and-answer session and the results of the questionnaire showed that the participants were strongly interested in both topics. There were also questions about entering The University of Tokyo.
Based on the success of this event, it was decided to continue this program in the future. The next meeting is scheduled to be held in the evening.
Published in the May 2021 issue of Faculty of Science News