Peking and Tsinghua University students take part in GSA-hosted winter school (15 Jan-26 Jan 2017)

发表日期

2017/02/15

From 15 through 26 January, the Graduate School of Agriculture (GSA) held a winter school program, "International Exchange with Chinese Top-Class Students Aiming for Research Competency Enhancement", for five students each from Peking University and Tsinghua University, China. The program was organized under the Wild & Wise Collaborative Learning Program with support from Kyoto University.

For the duration of the 12-day winter school, participants were enrolled in the Faculty of Agriculture as short-term international students, and each joined one of 10 GSA laboratories, including those of Professors Ryutaro Tao, Kiyoshi Yasukawa, and Naoshi Kondo.

In addition to training in the laboratories, the students attended lectures by GSA Professors Kondo and Motoki Akitsu on Japanese agricultural technologies and the world food situation, as well as talks by Associate Professors Liyou Han of the Institute for Liberal Arts and Sciences (ILAS), and Shikiko Yukawa, of the ILAS Education Center for Japanese Language and Culture. The program also included a lecture and hands-on session on tofu-making, presented by GSA master's student Yoshito Saito, as well as a field trip to a plant for processing Kitayama Sugi (a variety of Japanese cedar), and a tea ceremony. These activities enabled the students to learn about Japanese technologies and numerous facets of local culture, and offered them opportunities to discuss these in terms of differences and similarities to their counterparts in China.

The Peking and Tsinghua students constantly interacted with their host laboratories' faculty and students throughout the program, developing a deeper understanding of their research topics, which they presented on during a wrap-up session on the final day.