Abstract:

The extracurricular activity titled “Science Communication Project,” including its precursor, has marked the 16th anniversary in 2021. It originated from teaching staff’s regional contribution activities that started in 2006. The scope of this extracurricular activity has expanded, including lectures on scientific experiments targeted at seniors, lectures on computer programming targeted at elementary and middle school students, lectures on manufacturing targeted at high school students, and exhibitions at scientific booths during off-campus events. Students and teaching staff join hands to operate lectures. By giving these lectures, we have been conducting science communication with people in a wide age range.

From 2016 to 2019, we held 15 to 20 lectures per year. This extracurricular activity is conducted mainly on weekends. This implies that we received an order for holding a lecture once or twice a month. Such orders were placed by municipalities, associations of parents of elementary school pupils, staff of science museums and libraries, and others. In some cases, we proactively approached middle and high schools to hold lectures. In 2020, we refrained from holding face-to-face events due to COVID-19, but continued this extracurricular activity by realizing remote lectures.

This activity is aimed at not only conveying the fun of science and engineering to local people, but also providing students operating lectures with opportunities to interact with society. By utilizing such opportunities, students can foster “the basic skills as a member of society” that should be acquired before getting a job. “The basic skills as a member of society” are composed of “the ability to take a forward step,” “the ability to think out a thing,” and “the ability to work in a team.” They were proposed by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in 2006, as “the basic skills required for working with diverse people at a workplace or in a local community.” This paper mentions the background and details of our extracurricular activity so far.

Keywords:

Extracurricular Activity, PBL, Science Communication.