Tokyo Institute of Technology: High school students study radiation effects at ministry-backed seminar

Tokyo Tech High School of Science and Technology hosted Radiation College, a seminar that aims to disseminate accurate scientific knowledge about the health-related effects of radiation, on October 27. Twenty-two first and second-year high school students participated in the event, which featured a lecture by a Tokyo Tech alumnus and another by a government official from the Ministry of the Environment.

Radiation College is a series of seminars conducted under the auspices of the Ministry of the Environment’s Guguru Project. Guguru is an abbreviation of the suffixes of the Japanese verbs tsumugu, tsunagu, tsutawaru, which roughly translate to “weave, connect, and share.” The government project aims to weave together learning and knowledge, connect people, cities, and organizations, and share information and stories as if they were one’s own.

While this government project was initially aimed at university and technical college students, Tokyo Tech High School of Science and Technology was the first high school in Japan to host the event in 2021, expanding the scope of participants to high school students.

Radiation College aims to explore aspects of radiation-related health effects through five approaches — “To know”, “To learn”, “To make decisions”, “To listen”, and “To research.” The 2022 session at Tokyo Tech High School of Science and Technology was a combination of the first two of these approaches — “To know” and “To learn.”

Lecture 1: “To know” — Deciphering academic papers through a scientific approach
Assistant Professor Isamu Amir
School of Medicine, Fukushima Medical University
Assistant Professor Isamu Amir, who also gave a lecture at this event in 2021, returned in 2022 to share his knowledge with the high school students. Amir, who is a graduate of Tokyo Tech, worked as a lecturer of chemistry at the Tokyo Tech High School of Science and Technology during his doctoral program days at the Institute. During his lecture, titled “Considering the reliability of information,” Amir stressed the importance of scrutinizing information, pausing for a moment to view issues from multiple perspectives, and not taking things at face value. He demonstrated his points using various examples, including scientific papers and counterarguments, to enhance understanding among the students. He also touched on the difference between causation and correlation, contrasted books and online articles, and encouraged students to think more deeply about why misinformation arises, and what the resulting damage may be.

The lecture was given in an interactive environment, encouraging the young audience to ask questions openly using online tools made available for the talk.