Disclaimer: machine translated by DeepL which may contain errors.
A Wonderland of Science in Homecoming Day 2022 online
Yuichi Iino
(Director of Public Relations / Professor, Department of Biological Sciences)
The Graduate School of Science holds the lecture "Wonderland of Science" on the occasion of Homecoming Day at The University of Tokyo. The purpose of this event is to have alumni bring their children and grandchildren so that the children, who will carry the future, can experience the fascination of science. This year's event was again held on Saturday, October 15, in the form of a real-time streaming on the YouTube channel of the Faculty of Science, as was the case the year before last and the year before last. Following the lectures by the two lecturers, an interactive Q&A session was held using the online tool "Slido," in which students assisting the lecturers read out questions from the audience and passed them on to the lecturers. In response to requests from the audience, a brief pdf of the lecture was posted on the Faculty of Science website in advance of the lecture.
After an opening address by Dean Hoshino, Associate Professor Kazuhiro Shimasaku of the Department of Astronomy gave a lecture titled "The World of Galaxies" on the process of galaxy evolution and research to unravel it. He introduced many beautiful images of celestial objects, which only a researcher who mainly uses telescopes could produce, and explained the elemental compositions of the objects. The audience seemed to be intrigued by the lecture and asked questions related to the recent Hayabusa 1 and 2. Next, Professor Yoshio Takahashi, Department of Earth and Planetary Science, gave a lecture titled "Journey of Elements on Earth" on how elements have traveled around the entire earth during the 4.6 billion years since the birth of the earth, on a large space-time scale including the crust, atmosphere, and oceans. The audience seemed to be greatly intrigued by Professor Takahashi's explanation, which compared the biological water cycle to "a thousand winds," and many related comments were received.
(Top) Professor Takahashi, (Bottom) Associate Professor Shimasaku's lecture
The number of participants was 145 families for the live broadcast and 229 families for the on-demand viewing, which was available only on the day of the event. According to the questionnaire, a wide range of participants, from upper elementary school students to the general public, participated in the event, and many expressed satisfaction with the lectures, saying they were very interesting.
We would like to express our deepest gratitude to all the participants, Lecturers, and all those who prepared for the event and organized it on the day.
Faculty of Science News, November 2022