Report
FOLENS Seminar July 2010: Visit to Field Museum Tamakyuryo - Working out What the "Environment," "Science," and "Field" Mean to Us
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For the second FOLENS Seminar on 28 July 2010, eight students and three staff members of FOLENS visited Field Museum Tamakyuryo (FM Tamakyuryo), one of the facilities under TUAT Field Science Center.
This seminar had two objectives - “To think about how we can understand the meanings of the environment, science, and field, and review our philosophical base as future environmental leaders” and “to learn about FM Tamakyuryo– current and potential research activities”.
After a twenty-minute walk from the nearest train station under the strong summer sun, the FOLENS group received a warm welcome by Professor Hiroshi Hara and his students stationed there.
The seminar started with a lecture by Prof. Hara, which was divided into mainly two parts. The first was the introduction of FM Tamakyuryo—including its geographical overview and available research facilities. The second part dealt with philosophical discussion on the meanings of the environment, science, and field. He pointed out that there are three requirements for environmental scientists, such as to keep in mind effects and measures looking at connections between science and society, to engage in field works to perceive problems, and to recognize the necessity to make decisions with limited knowledge. He also highlighted the importance of field activities to stimulate “one’s view of the universe,” which provides an essential basis for a scientist to develop one’s original research.
After the lecture, Prof. Hara gave a guided tour around the FM. Some of the students enjoyed a challenging climb to the top of an eighteen-meter tower set up for research use.
During the discussion time after the tour, students raised a variety of questions to the professor, trying to improve their understanding on research activities at the FM and also philosophical ideas introduced during the lecture.
At the end of the seminar, three students shared their repot on the ITTO/IUCN/JICA international workshop on 'Biodiversity conservation in human influenced areas' that they participated earlier. (7 September 2010; SN).
Students comments:
I enjoyed actually visiting Tama Hills and feeling the nature and learning the meaning of research in the field. It was a good experience for me. I learned how to use or think about what I got from field. I could understand what the significance is when I think about the environment by using science. The story of constellation was interesting.
I enjoyed the travel to visit the field. After this seminar I learned about psychological ideas of sciences. This topic is very interesting.
The seminar was very interesting because I had never been there and I had a chance to know how they study about the atmospheric chemistry. It was particularly interesting to look at a very high tower and to learn about their long term ecological research. Hiroshi Hara sensei’s lecture on environmental problems and the philosophy of science and the characteristics of environmental studies was also very interesting. There are three important points that I learned in this seminar: environmental problems are occurred due to anthropogenic activities; acid rain or acid deposition is also one of the environmental problems; and fields provide more experiences than theory and experiment.
| FOLENS Seminar July 2010: Visit to Field Museum Tamakyuryo - Working out What the "Environment," "Science," and "Field" Mean to Us | |
| Time/Date | 14:00-17:00, 28 July, 2010 |
| Venue | Field Museum Tamakyuryo, TUAT |
| Program | |
| 13:30- | Meet at Hirayama-jyoshi Koen Station of Keio Line and walk to FM Tamakyuryo |
| 14:00- | Arrival in FM Tamakyuryo/ Introduction: What are we doing this afternoon? |
| 14:05- | Lecture by Prof. Hiroshi Hara (Faculty of Agriculture) |
| 15:00- | Walk in FM Tamakyuryo – Guide by Prof. Hara |
| 15:45- | Break |
| 16:00- | Free Discussion |
| 16:45- | Report of ITTO/IUCN/JICA international workshop on 'Biodiversity conservation in human influenced areas' by participated students |
| 17:00 | Closure |