Exhibiting hands-on experiments at the “Science Festival for Youth in China”
Hata Hiroki
https://sci-kagoshima-univ.jp/koukaikouza/- china
Background and objectives of activities
The Faculty of Science holds public lectures where you can experience science experiments as part of the ‘Science LABO’ program, but it is difficult for people from remote islands to participate. Therefore, by going to this event once a year, we aimed to ‘have children and adults around them experience experiments, become familiar with science, and take an interest in it’. At the same time, we also used this as an opportunity to let people know about Kagoshima University.
Summary of Activities
We set up a booth with the title “All sorts of things - science experiments with light”, and ran hands-on experiments where participants could break up light using diffraction gratings, mix light using light sources and spinning tops, and see infrared light using remote controls and smartphones. Children said things like “When I look outside through the diffraction grating, I can see a rainbow, but when I look at the indoor lights, I can only see three lines (mainly red, green and blue)! “The shadow of my hand turned into four colors, which was amazing”, ‘I'll try this in my class’, ‘I didn't think it would be this interesting’ were some of the comments from the elementary school teachers and parents.
Expected Benefits
Over 100 people participated in the event, including kindergarten children, junior high school students and parents, out of a population of around 6000 in China Town. We hope that this kind of event will help to bridge the gap for remote islands in terms of the science education environment.