Super Science High School
Another endeavor is to foster those special individuals who will be able to lead our globalized society. In this program, we plan to have a student exchange with a private high school and college in Vietnam.
The third one is to establish a wider network with universities, research institutes and so on in order to support the scientific programs at our school.
At a village in Hoa Binh, students walked around the village with young local people looking for plants that are medically useful and so on. They also had a meal in a wooden building whose floor is elevated by pillars. Students also had valuable experiences trying to communicate with the local youth without the help of any language.
At the construction site of a big suspension bridge over the Hong River, students were allowed to go up the pier, where they received explanations about the bridge. The bridge is being built by a Japanese construction company, Kajima Kensetsu.
At Hanoi University of Science and Technology, students had lectures about water purification in Vietnam and Agent Orange which was used during the Vietnam War.
At Nguyen Sieu High School,Chairman N guyen Trong Vinh and our Principal Morimoto signed a friendship agreement which promises everlasting friendly exchanges between the two schools.
Students had nice time talking each other, showing cultural or scientific aspects of each country (photos below), and having lunch together.
Our school is located on the hillside of Yata-kyuryo and is spread over a wide part of the hill. Junior High students have classes on the hill which is covered with broadleaf trees like Konara and so on.
Konara trees are cut down and sawed into short logs which students then use in order to grow mushrooms on them called Shiitake.
Students can learn how and when mushrooms grow on the logs and how the logs change year by year.
These classes are held for 1st grade students at the JHS every year.
The hills around our school were once used both as a place where neighbors could get necessary logs and other forest products, as well as for having small terraced paddy fields.
The school recovered the paddies on our grounds and began to grow rice there in the spring of 2012.
First year students from the SHS plant rice seedlings there in the spring, take care of the fields throughout the summer and then harvest them in autumn.
Students can learn how to grow rice as well as how human beings relate to the natural environment. This is an important agricultural experience for them and helps lead them to even greater insights into modern life, society and nature.
In the hills around our school there are a few small streams that flow by the gymnasium and along the grounds finally emptying into a neighboring pond.
In summer we can enjoy many fireflies flying around the waterways where students worked hard putting down sand bags to make the water move more slowly so that firefly larvae can feed more easily on Kawanina, a kind of freshwater snail.
Students are stimulated by fascinating lectures and become even more interested in science than before.
Let me present one example. When students visited the Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, they had lectures about scientific dating techniques, X-ray analyses, laser beam testing and so on. They were surprised to find out that modern technology is utilized even in the field of archaeology. Students’ experience will broaden their interests and deepen their understanding about modern science and technology.
Students also visited Kyoto University and had a lecture about the earth, earthquakes and so on. It must be a wonderful and exciting chance for the students to have lectures at prestigious Kyoto University, where one day they may even become a student in the near future.
We had 7 lectures after school during the year. Students who were interested in the lectures gathered and then listened intently to the current topics discussed.
Titles of the lectures were as follows:
1 From perfume to liquid crystal display television (June 21)
2 When pollen meets pistil at a rape blossom (July 25)
3 Bone density (October 24)
4 Water and the environment (November 19)
5 What is happening in the earth? Exploring technology (December 14)
6 Washing and science (January 24)
7 Life stages of stars in the winter sky (February 9)
These seminars are beneficial for the students because they don’t have to visit any universities to learn about first-rate research in each field.
Our students can learn as if they were university students.
The first one was titled The Science of Music where Ms. Yamano who is a singer and Mr. Ueshiba who arranges music showed how human emotions are affected by subtle changes in sound or music.
It was a very pleasant and instructive lecture from an artistic point of view. Students could definitely broaden their understanding about music and sound.
The second lecture was scheduled in October inviting Mr. Masukawa who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. He, however, became ill at that time and the lecture was unfortunately postponed.
The most impressive point in his speech was that the people of Toyooka are not officially taking care of the white storks like some kind of sanctuary, however they strongly desire to make the city comfortable both for its human inhabitants as well as for the white storks.
They do not use any agricultural chemicals in their rice fields so that the white storks can feed there. As a result, safe and tasty rice is harvested there and this fine reputation helps farmers to sell their superb rice. This was just one of numerous interesting examples we could hear about his city.
Students certainly learned how human beings should live in nature.