The second-year students of Tottori Higashi Senior High School, designated as a "Super Science High School (SSH)" visited Yokohama campus? on 15 July 2005, and Dr. Tomoe Nasuno, researcher of the Global Environment Modeling Research Program made 1 hour lecture on the "Numerical Simulation of clouds on the Earth using a new numerical model".
She explained and introduced a variety of scientific events such as the equation of meteorological phenomena, the structure of tropical cloud systems, generation of clouds and a Global Cloud- Resolving Atmosphere Model with 3.5km grid size which developed by the Next-Generation Model Development Group. In the Q&A time after the lecture, unique and interesting questions came up from the students - for example, "What's the difference between weather forecasting and climate change prediction?" "Is it true that the next day will be rain if jet contrails stay long in the sky?" and "Is it possible to express a flap of a butterfly's wings using models?" Dr. Nasuno answered all the questions sincerely. Hoping that her lecture encouraged them to be our colleagues as researchers in the future.
 
SSH is a program promoted by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. These high schools emphasize on the education of science and technology, natural science and mathematics and are expected to develop human resources with advanced scientific potentials. FRCGC, the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) supports this program every year.
 
Dr. Seita Emori, Group Leader of the Global Environment Modeling Research Program and Dr. Masayuki Takigawa, Post Doctral Researcher of the Atmospheric Composition Research Program gave talks on 24 August 2005 using "Tangible Earth", which is a touchable big globe and enable to shift any direction, in the Civic Pavilion, Seto Area, EXPO 2005 Aichi, Japan?. They were invited to the EXPO because the research results by their programs - the Global Warming Experiments and the Global Chemical Weather Forecast - were shown on "Tangible Earth". Since "Tangible Earth" was one of the popular exhibitions especially among children, and due in part to the summer holiday, many families visited there on that day. The two talks by Dr. Emori and Takigawa helped a lot to catch their interests, of course.
Dr. Emori said, "It was very new and interesting experience to talk about global warming in such a close distance to the audience. 'Tangible Earth' has a lot of possibilities as a communication tool, and I expect it will make a great contribution to promote and illuminate the study of the Earth and Environmental Sciences". Dr. Takigawa also commented as follows. "In spite of the typhoon approaching to Nagoya, it was very nice weather and many people at any age came and heard my talk with interest. Our talks were made in the midst of the many different types of volunteer activities, for instance, for the nature conservation, land-mine removals, and so on. It was a good experience for me to talk in such a different atmosphere from usual". Not only the audience but also the speaker themselves had an exciting and enjoyable day.
EXPO 2005 Aichi, Japan was held from 25 March to 25 September 2005.
 
 
Frontier Newsletter/No.28
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