2018 Activity Report vol.7:Oyama City

Activity Report of Open Application Course vol.7

High school students from Taiwan and Singapore learn Japanese advanced science & technology and environmental conservation efforts

Report from Oyama City, Tochigi pref.

Oyama City invited 12 excellent high school students and 2 supervisors learning science & technology and environment from August 24th to August 30th, 2018, with the cooperation of the education department at Kaohsiung City in Taiwan, which is conducting the friendship exchange, and Anglo-Chinese Independent School in Singapore (hereafter referred as ACS)

Kaohsiung City in Taiwan is promoting mutual exchange at the grassroots level, focusing on the acceptance of educational travel, since the agreement on education and economic field was exchanged in May 2017. Meanwhile, in Singapore, Oyama City employees were dispatched, and the ALT of Singapore was hired in some cases. But from the year 2017 the educational travel group of ACS was accepted to Oyama City every year.

In both Taiwan and Singapore, the effective use of resources and environmentally friendly technological innovation are regarded as important measures for the country, because the landscape is narrow and the resources are poor. In planning this program, it was considered to provide the students with learning and practice, and various experiences that they cannot get in their own country, such as starting with guidance for sorting the garbage at the dormitory, courtesy call to the mayor and the prefecture, and environmental conservation efforts of this City, in addition to framing the learning program according to purpose.

From the 2nd to the 3rd day, the participants observed the advanced technology of Japan at the Science Museum, TEPIA Advanced Technology Gallery, JAXA Tsukuba Space Center and Science Square. In each facility, the participants were exposed to a future world where robots and humans coexist, various technologies for the elderly and international society, and eagerly asked more than twice as many questions as they received explanations.

From the 4th to the 5th, a courtesy call to the Mayor of Oyama City and the Director of the International Affairs Division at the Prefectural Government was organized. Then, they visited two companies in the City that are implementing environmentally friendly efforts while making use of advanced science and technology.

They were able to see the technology of remote handling equipment (which they had worked with at TEPIA Advanced Technology Gallery) being used at the shop floor by Komatsu Ltd., a global company that ranks second in global market share in construction machinery. The Kyoei Sangyo Co., Ltd. has a technology that is unique in all the world for recycling PET bottles, and the questions from the students flowed without interruption on the technology that thoroughly recycle the garbage as a limited resource from sorting the garbage and up to recycling, collectively by the public and private sectors.

On the 6th day, they manufactured robots that can make objects run using friction, and spent time in a social gathering with the students of the National Institute of Technology, Oyama College. The research that is being conducted by the students of Taiwan, Singapore and Japan were presented in English, which was common to all three countries.

On the 7th day, they visited Watarase reservoir, which is registered with the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, and promoted by Oyama City for environmentally friendly agriculture in the surrounding area. They learned the importance of developing while coexisting with nature, and shared such opinions as “I am extremely thankful for the state-of-the-art wonderful technology of Japan, and the warm hospitality by the Japanese people”, “I would like to come again”, and “I would like to learn at Japan in future”, and they returned to their home country with a smile.