October 7, 2021 Students from Fukushima High School visited us.

Thirty-six students from Fukushima High School visited Fukushima University. Fukushima High School is designated as a “Super Science High School (SSH)” by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan. They visited our university as part of the SSH program, which encourages them to better understand the university and its research activities.

In the mock lecture of the half-day program, Project assistant professor Yasunori Igarashi gave a lecture following Professor Michio Sato and Associate professor Kazuharu Bamba of the Faculty of Symbiotic Systems Science.

Prof. Igarashi showed that the radiocesium concentration in Abukuma River changes with seasons, and explained the possible reasons for the changes by illustrating the chemical properties of cesium. The students seemed to be very impressed by Prof. Igrashi’s talk on the importance of basic knowledge of chemistry learned in high school in order to understand various natural phenomena.

After the lecture, the students moved to the IER’s buildings for a tour of the facility. Project assistant professor Hiroko Ishiniwa introduced the biology and molecular biology laboratories, and Associate professor Toshihiro Wada explained how to measure the radiocesium concentration using Ge detectors. With full-scale laboratories and measurement equipment in front of their eyes, the students, especially those who aspire to pursue science subjects, looked very excited and listened to the professors’ talk with great interest.