Yoshihito MORI
In the early 2000’s two students, Ms Yuki Matsuda and Ms Mayuko Tsuda of Faculty of Science had an idea to make collaborations with various organizations for preparing scientific classes and organized an outreach activity group with a name of Environmental Science Club in 2003 and Y.M. joined to it as an advisor. The club web page is located at https://ochakan.1net.jp/. The first challenge was to prepare a scientific experimental class in collaboration with a local non-profit organization, Environmental Network Bunkyo (ENB) http://www.en-bunkyo.org/. This was a good opportunity for the students to think science from various viewpoints because they had to talk with the NPO members who are different professionals and experts.
In the past decade, a number of the collaboration partners has increased and they were NPOs, Bunkyo City Hall, Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Bunkyo Gender Equality Center, Nihon Hoso Kyokai(NHK, Japan Broadcasting Corporation), Benesse Cooperation, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency(JAXA) and so on. The current chair of the group is Ms Sayaka OKINO. The policy of the group is as follows: Scientific knowledge is humankind's property and can be frequently seen in our daily life and the natural phenomena. The group has tried to share it with the different generations through the experimental science. In the activity focused is not explaining the knowledge but what can be done by the knowledge.
As below some of their experimental plans were listed. Through these experiments they communicated with overseas students who joint the Ochaonimizu University summer program.
(1) Pinhole camera
A pinhole can make an outside view projected on a plastic plate. The pinhole works like a universal lens.
(2) Blue print
On a light-sensitive paper the un-irradiated area can react with some chemical compound and changes from original pale green to blue. In chemistry the employed chemical reaction is called the diazo-coupling reaction.
(3) Campfor boat
A small plastic plate can run by itself on water. The “engine” is a campfor particle put on an end of the plate.
(4) Jumping straw
A surfactant solution membrane is expanded on an iron ring. A plastic straw is put on the middle of the ring. It brings two membranes in the ring. One of the two is broken to results in the straw jumping.
(5) Compact disk rainbow
A chip of a compact disk is put on the bottom of a box. The recordable surface is put as the front side. A white light beam is projected on the surface and the reflected light becomes a rainbow.
(6) Polarizing filter kaleidoscope
Passing of white light through two polarizing filters with slips of cellophane tape between the two brings a kaleidoscopic effect.