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YM COLUMN ARCHIVE

February 3, 2010

Education materials rooted in localities
(Okinawa to Tokyo to Abashiri to Sagamihara and to Kagoshima)

I came home from Abashiri yesterday. As I was in Okinawa two days before, local temperatures of two cities were so extensively different. Today I’m going to have a meeting to talk with schoolteachers in the afternoon in Sagamihara and then will have to fly to Kagoshima, which is truly “Nansen Hokuba” (meaning “busy with restless traveling”: literally “travel by ship to south and by horse to north”). We had “Cosmic College” of a single day course in Nago, Okinawa, which was supported by municipal team of Naha city and also participated by the citizens of the other city of Uruma. Okinawa is surely maturing as a stage for space education.

Of course, there is no question about the beauty of Okinawa Sea and there was a subject to talk about “star sand”. It seems that many beaches that used to be plenty with star sands before are no longer abundant with them because of overexploitation. As you may know, star sand is not really sand but foraminiferan, which is a nice subject to talk about “life”. As I did not have enough time on this visit, I bought, for this time, ten small souvenirs of star sands at 100 yen each at a souvenir shop on the way to the airport.

Nago, as a matter of fact, was almost as near as full blossom of Hikan cherries (early-flowering cherry), which was overwhelmingly beautiful as if spreading out pink colors of peach. Although it was for a short while, I could fully appreciate its splendor with my old friend who came to see me from Uruma city. Cherry blossom front seems to be already starting from here. Northern Hokkaido, my next destination after Okinawa, is going to have full blossom of cherries only far after Golden Week in May. Some years before, I let primary school pupils to calculate the speed of moving north of cherry front, of which answer is 23 centimeters per a second. Crossing the country up north at a slant angle with this velocity takes 150 days to cover 3,000 kilometers from Okinawa to Hokkaido. That is to say, moving speed of cherry front per a second along archipelago is equivalent to the size of a woman’ foot.

Snowy world of Abashiri received me after firm decision of establishing “Space School”, which is the second venue of the event after Betsukai-chou in Hokkaido. As there are already a certain number of persons with abundant experiences in giving science education classroom, I had an impression that they will manage the Space School on a reliable and steady basis. I think I can place a great expectation on them.

What made a lively conversation in Abashiri was if it will be possible to make special educational materials related to drift ice, for Abashiri is well known for drifting ice. Thanks to the suggestive guidance from Prof. Sumio Endo who accompanied me on this trip, we could somehow make out an outline of a scheme. All those things I saw on the way from airport to the hotel: fishing surf smelt on a frozen Abashiri lake, ocean drift ice, frozen ice on a surface of pond and carp below, ices surrounding Europa and vast ocean below the ices; all these sceneries associated with imagination after imagination helped us to build up our imaginary framework of educational material.

What is good about the educational materials made from local specialties is that children as well as adults altogether can get familiar with the materials, which means that they are able to repeatedly look at the educational materials from different angles, because they are daily in contact with them. This kind of material has potential possibilities to diversify its developments in many different ways, depending upon how to do it. In fact, I think anywhere in any district of this country such educational materials specialized in each locality can be possibly made. In Abashiri, “snow” could be also a good material, which I think I will leave for next discussion. “Last and first association game” linking things at hand up to the space is so interesting that it is hardly possible to break up conversation.

And now, what will be a topic of discussion in Kagoshima today?

I welcome your comments on this column to the following E-mail address.
matogawa@planetary.or.jp

(Translated by The Planetary Society of Japan)