On 5 September, the opening ceremony for the FY2015 program of Global Science Campus ELCAS ("Experienced-based Learning Course for Advanced Science") was held, with some 200 persons, including Kyoto University officials and 146 participating high school students, in attendance.
The ELCAS program is aimed at producing "outstanding intellectuals" who are equipped with advanced and wide-ranging specialist knowledge together with the creativity and vision needed to achieve scientific and technological innovation.
In FY2015, some 150 first- and second-year high school students -- selected from among those who have applied for or been nominated to the program from across the Kinki region and beyond -- will take basic-level courses from September 2015 through February 2016. These courses are divided into two phases, the first one comprising lectures by university faculty members and the second involving experiments and hands-on activities in specific academic disciplines to which the students will have been assigned based on their areas of interest. Upon completion of the basic courses, those who are interested may apply to enroll in one of the advanced courses, each of which is focused on a specific discipline and entails conducting advanced-level research and writing papers that may be submitted for possible publication in Kyoto University's English-language journal for high school students.
The ceremony began with presentations by five KU students who shared their experiences of taking ELCAS courses and discussed their current studies in their respective faculties.
These were followed by an English-language lecture by Assistant Professor Toshi Sumida of the Graduate School of Science, who currently works as a particle physics researcher at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, also known as CERN ("Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire"). Entitled "Introduction to Modern Particle Physics", the talk covered the basics of the lecturer's own work and the cutting-edge of his field.
The final presentation of the day was a primatology lecture by President Juichi Yamagiwa who described his research experiences in accessible terms through the use of video clips and shared his thoughts on working in the field and Kyoto University's research climate.
Afterward, a number of attendees provided feedback comments indicating a strong interest in research at Kyoto University: "Today's presentations have reinforced my desire to study at Kyoto University," "It's been a highly fruitful day; I have come to recognize the importance of learning English and have developed an interest in astronomy," "It was interesting to learn that discoveries made in the field can have a profound impact on scholarship, as can work in the laboratory."
Lecture by President Yamagiwa
Lecture by Assistant Professor Sumida
Related link
- Global Science Campus ELCAS
http://elcas.kyoto-u.ac.jp/ (in Japanese)
