2011年10月18日

Evidence for True Fall-Mating in Japanese Newt Cynops pyrrhogaster

ZOOLOGICAL SCIENCE 28: 758–763 (2011)

Evidence for True Fall-mating in Japanese Newt Cynops pyrrhogaster
Shigeharu Akiyama, Yasuhiro Iwao and Ikuo Miura

The mating season of Japanese newt Cynops pyrrhogaster is generally thought to occur once a year in spring to early summer, during the months of April to June, as in many other Japanese amphibians. However, in fall, from September to October, we often observed breeding colored males demonstrating a mating behavior with females in the field. In this study, in order to identify their true mating season, we anatomically and histologically investigated the annual maturation cycle of gonads and reproductive organs, including cloacal spermathecae in females, and, using a molecular marker, identified the seasonal origins of sperm, which are released in spring to perform insemination. We found that, in fall, ovaries are somewhat immature, while the testes were mature and the sperm already stored in the deferent ducts. Females stored a significant amount of sperm in around 80% of the spermatechae examined in October and 100% in December. When artificially ovulated in March before contact with male partners after hibernation, the females spawned fertilized eggs and these developed normally. Finally, we identified heterozygous genotypes of the visual pigment gene for the two different population types in the embryos, which were derived from a female who established contact with males of the same population in fall and then switched to males from another population until oviposition in spring. We therefore, conclude that the true mating season of this species occurs from fall to early summer, interrupted only by winter, and lasts six months longer (from October to June) than generally believed.

Key words: fall mating, newt, spermathecae, sperm, maturation

投稿者: 秋山繁治 日時: 17:35｜パーマリンク | コメント (0)

2010年11月30日

The program’s effects on our students

The SSH (Super Science High School) project offered us the opportunity to build an unprecedented program for female students. Focusing on providing practical “encounters” with nature, our curriculum forces our students to take positive leadership in their research activities, and to develop their presentation skills which are integral for communicating with an international audience. The other favorable effects on our students are shown in the charts below.
This year, our students are not planning to go out to distant areas for their research activities. We have chosen to stay in our local area and take a closer look at natural creatures around our school - our institution stands on a hill surrounded by trees and paddy fields.
Currently, observing the plants on the hill and the creatures inhabiting in paddy fields are among the students’ research assignments. Students are now eager to find out about the behaviors of the local Reeves’s pond turtles and Red-ear sliders. They will employ the “mark-and-recapture method” as well as “biotelemetry”. We would like to further continue providing education focusing on this kind of contact with animals and with nature.
　I would like to finish with an interesting bit of information from a survey conducted by Dr. Hishoshi Nakano. In that survey one third of elementary school children answered yes when asked whether they thought dead people could live again. This was reported in newspaper articles, and critics suggested that something was desperately lacking in the education curriculum. What was lacking, many argued, was the ‘Heart-Enriching education’ which is to say the study of life and the living world. But without encountering that living world as it is, such heart-enriching education is simply not possible. I wonder if this is only true with elementary school children. What about junior high school students and high school students? What about college students, and moreover, even adults? It is my firm belief that in our age, for all generations, real-life encounters with nature are indispensable to our education, and to live our lives as humans.

Seishin Girls’ High School AKIYAMA Shigeharu

投稿者: 秋山繁治 日時: 06:53｜パーマリンク | コメント (0)

Content of our educational program for “Life Science Course”

The Life Science Course incorporates three core elements in order to give students hands-on experience in the natural world: ① Study Workshops which foster students interest in scientific fields;　② Experiments with university researchers; ③ Research assignments. All of these programs are being carried out with the gracious assistance of neighboring university researchers

Study Workshops
Our program provides a 5-day Field Study Workshop for first year students, and a 4-day study workshop in Okinawa for second year students. A Study Workshop in Borneo is available for students of all grades, if they wish to participate.
At the Field Study Workshop, students learn about the forests and environmental issues from university lecturers and from hands-on research training. Activities include measuring and calculating the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by an assigned area of the forests.
At the Okinawa Study Workshop, students listen to research workers’ lectures concerning the behavior of local animals such as wildcats and bats. They also have a chance to observe the plants and animals in mangrove forests as well as sea life while snorkeling and kayaking.
At the Borneo Study Workshop, students attend Sabah University where they listen to lectures on plants and animals by resident professors. They also observe the plants and animals of Kinabalu Park(World Heritage) as well as the area along the Kinabatangan River. During this program, our students have the opportunity to interact with Malaysian high school students by giving presentations on their individual research in English.

Experiments at neighboring universities
In addition to ordinary classes, we visit our neighboring universities which allows our students to gain experience doing experiments with professional researchers. In the classes called “Life Science PracticeⅠ”and “Life Science PracticeⅡ”, our students learn applied life science at a level far beyond the that of high school science textbooks.
For “Life Science PracticeⅠ”we have formed a relationship with Fukuyama University. This relationship makes it possible for our students to get inside the university research laboratories. The students learn the fundamentals of the specialized areas of marine biotechnology and applied biological science.
For “Life Science PracticeⅡ, we have formed a relationship with the Okayama University of Science. There students are able to practice such things as DNA extraction.

Research Assignments
Students can choose the research topics from three different groups. I instruct the group of students whose interests are urodele amphibians and yeast.
The aims of our research on the urodele amphibians are as follows: to establish the procedures of artificial fertilization, to raise the ratio of normal hatching, to prolong the capability of eggs and sperm to achieve fertilization, to find the proper density for keeping larvae, feeding them and preventing canibalism.
As for our research on yeast, we are tackling the issues of classifying yeast extracted from flowers and fruits As the yeasts inhabit the different kinds of flowers, analyzing the relations between the yeasts and the flowers may reveal something useful in understanding the ecosystem and related ecological issues. We classify the yeasts in accordance with the shapes observed under microscopes, the DNA arrangements, the electrophoretic karyotyping, and their fermentation capacities.

Seishin Girls’ High School AKIYAMA Shigeharu

投稿者: 秋山繁治 日時: 06:50｜パーマリンク | コメント (0)

Building a program around contact with nature in the high school education curriculum

Since my school is a girls’ high school, all the activities, such as Student Council activities as well as club activities, are carried out by female students. This also means that our school provides an ideal circumstance for training girls to positively take leadership in school activities. I therefore initiated the program for female students to cultivate their interest in scientific fields. I believe in the value of this because Japan has only a limited number of female scientists as compared with the rest of the world.
In 2006 we were designated by Ministry of Education as a Super Science High School and for the past four years, we have been building a unique school curriculum. We also established the “Life Science Course” in our school curriculum in which we provide students with numerous opportunities for field study. We focused on this because in Japan, the life science field is among the most popular areas for female scientists.

Seishin Girls’ High School AKIYAMA Shigeharu

投稿者: 秋山繁治 日時: 06:49｜パーマリンク | コメント (0)

Female students’ lack of encounters with nature

Here in Japan, only a limited number of females are active in scientific fields. As a result of cultural norms and historical circumstance, our country has held a negative attitude toward women’s participation in prominent academic occupations. A white paper from the Ministry of Education showed that even elementary school students have strong ideas of gender roles. The paper pointed out that “all children are having fewer and fewer opportunities for contact with nature and the world beyond the home, the kind of experiences that are crucial for children’s further development.” Having less contact with nature might be one of the main causes for children’s – and especially women’s - decreased interest in science fields.
Seventh graders were asked, “Do you go catching insects?” 59.3 percent of boys interested in science answered “yes”, whereas only 35.9 percent of boys with no interest in science answered “yes”. The girls’ reactions were very different from those of boys. Only 35.9 percent of girls interested in science answered “yes, I go catching insects” whereas 27.7 percent of girls without interest in science answered “yes.”
The survey indicates that girls are likely to have much less contact with nature compared to boys, most likely due to biased views of gender roles. When students do experiments in class, girls are likely to assume assisting roles to boys, and not take on leading roles. The fact that only a limited number of girls take courses in science is, I believe, in part a result of their limited opportunities for experiencing nature. So, in order to increase the number of female scientists, we need to have programs that enable girls to experience nature first hand.

Seishin Girls’ High School AKIYAMA Shigeharu

投稿者: 秋山繁治 日時: 06:48｜パーマリンク | コメント (0)

Real-life Encounters with Creatures

Two primary objectives of science education at the elementary school level are cultivating a love of nature and developing the ability to solve problems. All elementary school students take the subject “Seikatsu-ka”, in which they experience taking care of animals. I decided to give my students the assignment of writing a research report on how their own elementary schools are taking care of their school pets and how they are using those pets for educational purposes. I have been giving this research assignment to my students annually since 1999. To my surprise, some students enclosed in their report a photo of a notice attached to the animal cages which read, “Keep away from this cage! Students responsible for feeding only!” I thought to myself, what is the point of keeping animals if nearly no one can interact with them? Not surprisingly, my students seem to be lacking in memories of seeing their school animals. I thus decided a few years ago to send out questionnaires to all the elementary schools in my prefecture, Okayama, in order to find out how they were taking care of their animals. This research revealed some eye-opening results.
Rabbits – cute and cuddly - are the most popular animals kept at schools here. However, 54 percent of the schools surveyed could not tell whether their rabbits were female or male. As a result, 65 percent were keeping males mixed with females and 91 percent were keeping their rabbits without using any kind of population control treatment. Some schools were keeping as many as 40 rabbits. Since the school teachers do not have the proper understanding of the animals’ behaviors, they are confronted by numerous difficulties. However, what surprised me most was that during the past ten years three students were denied entry when they tried to visit the elementary school from which they graduated. I do not know exactly the reason the students were prevented from seeing the animals, however the schools might be aware of some problems in their dealings with their pets.
The Governmental Educational Council feels keeping animals at schools helps deliver the Heart-Enriching education they wish to give students. At schools, however, numerous problems prevent this from happening: teachers’ lack of knowledge, insufficient financial support for keeping animals, and the burdens of keeping living creatures. These conditions, as well as the current issue of “Bird Flu” make many educators reluctant to keep animals at school.
So when asked the question: “What would make you sadder, the death of a pet at home or the death of a pet at school?, nearly all students reply “a pet at home.” The reason for this reaction simple: the more contact children have with an animal, the more attachment they will feel to it. So yes, rabbits can be good creatures to keep at school, so long as we limit their number to two or three and use suitable population control treatments. Using animals to enrich the hearts of students is good thinking, but the teachers need to be knowledgeable and the students must be able to have contact with the animals.

Seishin Girls’ High School AKIYAMA Shigeharu

投稿者: 秋山繁治 日時: 06:47｜パーマリンク | コメント (0)

Introduction

Twenty years ago, my colleague brought to my biology laboratory a cluster of strange-looking banana shaped egg sacs from the paddy fields. In those days, I did not really like walking in the mountains or paddy fields. I hated the bees and snakes in these places. Nor did I care much for the amphibians. However, as I observed those eggs incubating, something changed and I became interested in the small creatures inside. These eggs later hatched and from them came some kind of fish with external gills. They turned out to be what are called clouded salamanders. Two years later, I was able to have those salamanders lay unfertilized eggs in my laboratory and after that my chief interest became focused on how to fertilize salamander eggs in my laboratory. I have since succeeded in breeding numerous kinds of amphibians such as “Oita salamanders” and “Anderson’s alligator salamanders”.
My laboratory, now filled with the various kinds of creatures I have bred, might well be called an amphibian zoo. My students visit my laboratory every day to feed the creatures and study their behavior. Doing outdoor research with my students has allowed me to witness first hand the destruction of amphibian habitats. This has encouraged me to start thinking about what things can be done to improve the current situation. I have also realized that there is a strong connection between what is happening in amphibian habitats and greater environmental issues.
Indeed, I myself have learned tremendously through keeping those small creatures. Through my experience teaching students about breeding amphibians, I better understand the educational value hands-on encounters with natural world. Simply put, in science, “knowledge” is not enough. We need “real experience”. We need to touch; to feel; to hear, smell and taste (Please do not eat the salamanders). I believe that such contact with nature is instrumental for cultivating student interest in science as well as nourishing a scientific way of thinking.

Seishin Girls’ High School AKIYAMA Shigeharu

投稿者: 秋山繁治 日時: 06:46｜パーマリンク | コメント (0)

2010年07月04日

About the problem of naturalized animals

投稿者: 秋山繁治 日時: 07:29｜パーマリンク | コメント (0)

2010年06月26日

“We should stop keeping animals as pets in elementary schools.”

●OK, today’s proposition is “We should stop keeping animals as pets in Japanese elementary schools.” Now, let’s begin the debate. First, we will hear the Affirmative’s position. Your time limit is 6 minutes. Go ahead.

【Affirmative Constructive Speech】6 min.
We think we should stop keeping animals as pets in Japanese elementary schools. We have two main reasons.
The first reason is that there are health problems.
Some students and teachers have allergies to animals. Recently, the number of people who have allergies to animals has been increasing. Animal hair, skin, spit or excreta cause nasal allergies, allergic dermatitis, asthma and so on. Above all these symptoms, asthma is the most serious. If someone suffers a severe asthma attack, they sometimes die from choking or heart failure. Actually, there is one case. A man in his forties, who had chronic asthma, was bitten by a hamster. The hamster’s spit that entered into his body from the wound caused a shock symptom to him. He had a severe asthma attack, and few hours later, he died. There are such serious risks when allergic patients have contact with animals.
Besides, infections caused by animals are also dangerous. For example, bird flu spread all over the world in 2004. It is very common to keep birds in schools, but at that time, many schools stopped keeping birds to avoid the danger. In another case, we can get a “parrot disease” by breathing dried fecal dust when we clean birdhouses. If this disease becomes severe, it can possibly lead to death.
There are such dangers in keeping animals.
The second reason is that there are management problems.
In 2008, our school sent out questionnaires about animals kept in schools to 435 elementary schools in Okayama Prefecture, and 83 percent of them, 360 schools answered. In the questionnaire, we asked, “Do you have any troubles in keeping animals?” The top answer to this question is that they have troubles in animal management during long vacations. We also asked who takes care of the animals during holidays, and 78 percent answered, “Only Teachers do.” According to these answers, we can say that currently animals are taken care of mainly by teachers in most schools, and teachers feel it is troublesome.
To the question about the troubles in keeping animals, the second largest number of schools answered that teachers also don’t know how to keep animals. Despite many elementary schools keep animals, there is no class in Japanese elementary school teacher training course to teach how to keep animals properly, how animals affect children or what meanings are there in keeping animals. So, it’s natural that teachers don’t have correct knowledge about that. However, this has been causing a lot of problems. For example, rabbits are kept in wrong ways in many schools. According to the results of the questionnaire survey, 65 percent of the schools keep rabbits without separating males and females. 91 percent keep uncastrated male rabbits. As a result, rabbits breed too much, and it cause problems. One elementary school in Okayama keeps as many as 40 rabbits! Keeping animals more than necessity makes the management harder and has a bad influence on the environment for them. In addition, some schools said that they are throwing away dead animals as garbage, because they don’t know how to deal with them. How will children feel if they know this? There can be no good influence.
Like this, keeping animals in elementary schools is quite a burden for schools and teachers. Therefore, we insist that we don’t need to keep animals in Japanese elementary schools with all these risks.

○Now, members of the Negative Side, you may ask questions regarding their position. And Affirmative Side, please respond to their questions. The time limit is 2 minutes. Go ahead.

【Cross Examination】2 min.
N:OK. We have three questions. First, do you think that people who have allergies to animals can never have contact with animals?
A:Yes. They cannot have contact with them in view of safety.
N:Second, don’t we have any ways to prevent infections caused by animals, such as a parrot disease?
A:Yes, we have.
N:Third, about animal management, are there any ways to improve it?
A:Yes. There are some ways, but it is difficult to innovate them.
N:That’s all. Thank you very much.
A:Thank you.

●Next, we will hear the Negative Side’s position. Your time limit is 6 minutes. Go ahead.

【Negative Constructive Speech】6 min.
We think that we should never stop keeping animals as pets in elementary schools. We have two main reasons.
The first reason is that keeping animals can help children understand the preciousness of life.
In keeping animals, we can contact with animals directly, take care of them, and experience the joy of birth of a new life or sorrow of death by our side. It was in the Meiji era that Japanese elementary schools started to keep animals. It has a long history of about 100 years and it is evidence that we can understand the preciousness of life and engender a sense of caring of the week through the experience of keeping animals. Even now the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology is recommending in its curriculum guideline that elementary schools keep animals as part of education of the mind.
In 2000, a survey carried out and included 192 elementary school students. In the survey, they were asked, “What do you think if you see your friend bullied?” and more than half of those who had experience in keeping animals answered they would like to help them. However, more than half of those who had no experience in keeping animals answered they would just feel sorry. Besides, another survey shows that children who have experienced death of their favorite pets will feel negative about suicide. The results of these surveys also tell us that the experience of keeping animals makes children understand the preciousness of life and engender a sense of caring. Recently, bullying or offenses of a heinous nature committed by juveniles are increasing. This is an indication of young people’s disrespecting life or ignoring human rights, but learning the preciousness of life from a young age can help prevent these crimes.
The second reason is that keeping animals is highly effective in education.
An animal is not just a “thing.” If we treat them in wrong ways or leave them without caring, they will die. Unlike nonliving things, there can be irreversible consequences if we treat them only for our own convenience. Having contact with animals, children can begin to realize that. They can learn a sense of responsibility in taking care of them in the proper way. They can also learn cooperation through taking care of them together with their friends and teachers. Moreover, while they are taking care of them, they come to love them, and they will think with serious mind how they can please their favorite animals. And naturally, they can learn sympathy for others and sharpen their eyes for others.
By keeping animals, which are not nonliving things, children can learn responsibility, cooperation and observation power. Animals are the best education material to teach these things.
Under ordinary circumstances, respect for life or sympathy to others should be cultivated at home from infancy. Recently, however, environment surrounding children has been changed because of the trend of nuclear families or families with fewer children, and people’s relationships are getting poorer. Also, there are many families who cannot keep animals at home because of housing situation, and it is getting difficult to teach these things at home. Under such circumstance, we need to make children understand preciousness of life and make them respect life thorough keeping animals in schools, not at home.
Therefore, we insist that we should never stop keeping animals in Japanese elementary schools.
○Now, members of the Affirmative Side, you may ask questions regarding the Negative’s position. And Negative Side, please respond to their questions. The time limit is 2 minutes. Go ahead.

【Cross Examination】2 min.
A:OK. We have three questions. First, let us confirm one thing. You think that we can definitely make children understand the preciousness of life through keeping animals, right?
N:Yes. We think so.
A:Secondly, in order to make children understand the preciousness of life, is it absolutely necessary to keep animals in schools?
N:Yes. That’s right.
A:Lastly, do you have any data which suggests that keeping animals prevents crimes?
N:We don’t have specific data, but a study from America shows that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between animal abuses and heinous crimes.
A:That’s all. Thank you very much.
N:Thank you.

●Now, we will move on to both side’s rebuttal speeches. First, we will hear the Affirmative Side’s rebuttal of the Negative’s position. The time limit is 5 minutes. Go ahead.

【Affirmative Rebuttal】5 min.
We would like to counter the Negative Side’s argument on three points.
First, the Negative Side said, “We can definitely make children understand the preciousness of life through keeping animals,” but if we keep them in wrong ways, just the opposite occurs. As we said in the first speech, animals in schools are not well managed in this situation. For instance, in 1997, there was an incident in an elementary school in Saitama prefecture in which a teacher buried live baby rabbits because they had problems with them breeding too much. This incident was reported on television shows and newspapers. Later, as well, similar incidents have occurred in many parts of Japan. Also, some schools keep animals under horrible conditions because of their sloppy management. When children find out that lives of animals are treated irresponsibly for humans’ convenience, they will be hurt, and will also become insensitive to death. In such situations, keeping animals by main force can never make children understand the preciousness of life, and in fact, it encourages disrespect for life.
Second, you said, “It is absolutely necessary to keep animals in schools in order to make children understand the preciousness of life,” but is that really true? You know that some schools don’t keep any animals, and not all the countries recommend that elementary schools keep animals. In those places, is it impossible to teach children about life? We think that without keeping animals, we can teach them enough about life by giving them knowledge from books or videos, and they can also learn those things from relationship to other people in schools, such as friends and teachers.
And third, about educational effect, you said, “Children can learn a sense of responsibility in taking care of animals.” But as the questionnaire survey shows, currently animals are taken care of mainly by teachers in most schools. In those schools, for example, children don’t need to take care of them during holidays, because teachers do it for them. It is difficult to learn a sense of responsibility in such situations.
Finally, we would like to answer to the question from your side in a little more detail.
We said that we have some ways to prevent infections caused by animals. To prevent virus entry from our eyes or mouth, we must put on goggles, masks or gloves. The Negative Side said that we can learn about life by having direct contact with animals, but in this way, we cannot contact with animals “directly,” and it becomes meaningless to keep animals.
Therefore, we think there is no such merit in keeping animals in schools.

○Well, members of the Negative Side, you may ask questions regarding the Affirmative’s rebuttal. And Affirmative Side, please respond to their questions. The time limit is 2 minutes. Go ahead.

【Cross Examination】2 min.
N:We have two questions. Firstly, do you admit that we can learn the preciousness of life through keeping animals in a proper way?
A:Only in the case that animals are kept under perfect management, we can say “Yes.”
N:Secondly, do books or videos as education materials have as much value as life of animals?
A:Even if they don’t have just as much value as life of animals, they can function well enough as education materials.
N:That’s all. Thank you very much.
A:Thank you.

投稿者: 秋山繁治 日時: 21:24｜パーマリンク | コメント (0)

2010年05月01日

Developing Scientific Thinking through Encounters with the Natural World

Seishin Girls’ High School　　
AKIYAMA Shigeharu
1. Introduction
　　Twenty years ago, my colleague brought to my biology laboratory a cluster of strange-looking banana shaped egg sacs from the paddy fields. In those days, I did not really like walking in the mountains or paddy fields. I hated the bees and snakes in these places. Nor did I care much for the amphibians. However, as I observed those eggs incubating, something changed and I became interested in the small creatures inside. These eggs later hatched and from them came some kind of fish with external gills. They turned out to be what are called clouded salamanders. Two years later, I was able to have those salamanders lay unfertilized eggs in my laboratory and after that my chief interest became focused on how to fertilize salamander eggs in my laboratory. I have since succeeded in breeding numerous kinds of amphibians such as “Oita salamanders” and “Anderson’s alligator salamanders”.
　　My laboratory, now filled with the various kinds of creatures I have bred, might well be called an amphibian zoo. My students visit my laboratory every day to feed the creatures and study their behavior. Doing outdoor research with my students has allowed me to witness first hand the destruction of amphibian habitats. This has encouraged me to start thinking about what things can be done to improve the current situation. I have also realized that there is a strong connection between what is happening in amphibian habitats and greater environmental issues.
　　Indeed, I myself have learned tremendously through keeping those small creatures. Through my experience teaching students about breeding amphibians, I better understand the educational value hands-on encounters with natural world. Simply put, in science, “knowledge” is not enough. We need “real experience”. We need to touch; to feel; to hear, smell and taste (Please do not eat the salamanders). I believe that such contact with nature is instrumental for cultivating student interest in science as well as nourishing a scientific way of thinking.

2. Real-life　Encounters with Creatures　　
　　Two primary objectives of science education at the elementary school level are cultivating a love of nature and developing the ability to solve problems. All elementary school students take the subject “Seikatsu-ka”, in which they experience taking care of animals. I decided to give my students the assignment of writing a research report on how their own elementary schools are taking care of their school pets and how they are using those pets for educational purposes. I have been giving this research assignment to my students annually since 1999. To my surprise, some students enclosed in their report a photo of a notice attached to the animal cages which read, “Keep away from this cage! Students responsible for feeding only!” I thought to myself, what is the point of keeping animals if nearly no one can interact with them? Not surprisingly, my students seem to be lacking in memories of seeing their school animals. I thus decided a few years ago to send out questionnaires to all the elementary schools in my prefecture, Okayama, in order to find out how they were taking care of their animals. This research revealed some eye-opening results.
　　Rabbits – cute and cuddly - are the most popular animals kept at schools here. However, 54 percent of the schools surveyed could not tell whether their rabbits were female or male. As a result, 65 percent were keeping males mixed with females and 91 percent were keeping their rabbits without using any kind of population control treatment. Some schools were keeping as many as 40 rabbits. Since the school teachers do not have the proper understanding of the animals’ behaviors, they are confronted by numerous difficulties. However, what surprised me most was that during the past ten years three students were denied entry when they tried to visit the elementary school from which they graduated. I do not know exactly the reason the students were prevented from seeing the animals, however the schools might be aware of some problems in their dealings with their pets.
　　The Governmental Educational Council feels keeping animals at schools helps deliver the Heart-Enriching education they wish to give students. At schools, however, numerous problems prevent this from happening: teachers’ lack of knowledge, insufficient financial support for keeping animals, and the burdens of keeping living creatures. These conditions, as well as the current issue of “Bird Flu” make many educators reluctant to keep animals at school.
　　So when asked the question: “What would make you sadder, the death of a pet at home or the death of a pet at school?, nearly all students reply “a pet at home.” The reason for this reaction simple: the more contact children have with an animal, the more attachment they will feel to it. So yes, rabbits can be good creatures to keep at school, so long as we limit their number to two or three and use suitable population control treatments. Using animals to enrich the hearts of students is good thinking, but the teachers need to be knowledgeable and the students must be able to have contact with the animals.

3. Female students’ lack of encounters with nature
　　Here in Japan, only a limited number of females are active in scientific fields. As a result of cultural norms and historical circumstance, our country has held a negative attitude toward women’s participation in prominent academic occupations. A white paper from the Ministry of Education showed that even elementary school students have strong ideas of gender roles. The paper pointed out that “all children are having fewer and fewer opportunities for contact with nature and the world beyond the home, the kind of experiences that are crucial for children’s further development.” Having less contact with nature might be one of the main causes for children’s – and especially women’s - decreased interest in science fields.
　　Seventh graders were asked, “Do you go catching insects?” 59.3 percent of boys interested in science answered “yes”, whereas only 35.9 percent of boys with no interest in science answered “yes”. The girls’ reactions were very different from those of boys. Only 35.9 percent of girls interested in science answered “yes, I go catching insects” whereas 27.7 percent of girls without interest in science answered “yes.”
　　The survey indicates that girls are likely to have much less contact with nature compared to boys, most likely due to biased views of gender roles. When students do experiments in class, girls are likely to assume assisting roles to boys, and not take on leading roles. The fact that only a limited number of girls take courses in science is, I believe, in part a result of their limited opportunities for experiencing nature. So, in order to increase the number of female scientists, we need to have programs that enable girls to experience nature first hand.

4. Building a program around contact with nature in the high school education curriculum.
　　Since my school is a girls’ high school, all the activities, such as Student Council activities as well as club activities, are carried out by female students. This also means that our school provides an ideal circumstance for training girls to positively take leadership in school activities. I therefore initiated the program for female students to cultivate their interest in scientific fields. I believe in the value of this because Japan has only a limited number of female scientists as compared with the rest of the world.
　　In 2006 we were designated by Ministry of Education as a Super Science High School and for the past four years, we have been building a unique school curriculum. We also established the “Life Science Course” in our school curriculum in which we provide students with numerous opportunities for field study. We focused on this because in Japan, the life science field is among the most popular areas for female scientists.

5. Content of our educational program for “Life Science Course”　　The Life Science Course incorporates three core elements in order to give students hands-on experience in the natural world: ① Study Workshops which foster students interest in scientific fields;　② Experiments with university researchers; ③ Research assignments. All of these programs are being carried out with the gracious assistance of neighboring university researchers

①　Study Workshops
　　Our program provides a 5-day Field Study Workshop for first year students, and a 4-day study workshop in Okinawa for second year students. A Study Workshop in Borneo is available for students of all grades, if they wish to participate.
　　At the Field Study Workshop, students learn about the forests and environmental issues from university lecturers and from hands-on research training. Activities include measuring and calculating the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by an assigned area of the forests.
　　At the Okinawa Study Workshop, students listen to research workers’ lectures concerning the behavior of local animals such as wildcats and bats. They also have a chance to observe the plants and animals in mangrove forests as well as sea life while snorkeling and kayaking.
　　At the Borneo Study Workshop, students attend Sabah University where they listen to lectures on plants and animals by resident professors. They also observe the plants and animals of Kinabalu Park(World Heritage) as well as the area along the Kinabatangan River. During this program, our students have the opportunity to interact with Malaysian high school students by giving presentations on their individual research in English.

②　Experiments at neighboring universities
　　In addition to ordinary classes, we visit our neighboring universities which allows our students to gain experience doing experiments with professional researchers. In the classes called “Life Science PracticeⅠ”and “Life Science PracticeⅡ”, our students learn applied life science at a level far beyond the that of high school science textbooks.
　　For “Life Science PracticeⅠ”we have formed a relationship with Fukuyama University. This relationship makes it possible for our students to get inside the university research laboratories. The students learn the fundamentals of the specialized areas of marine biotechnology and applied biological science.
　　For “Life Science PracticeⅡ, we have formed a relationship with the Okayama University of Science. There students are able to practice such things as DNA extraction.

③ Research Assignments
　　Students can choose the research topics from three different groups. I instruct the group of students whose interests are urodele amphibians and yeast.
　　The aims of our research on the urodele amphibians are as follows: to establish the procedures of artificial fertilization, to raise the ratio of normal hatching, to prolong the capability of eggs and sperm to achieve fertilization, to find the proper density for keeping larvae, feeding them and preventing canibalism.
　　As for our research on yeast, we are tackling the issues of classifying yeast extracted from flowers and fruits As the yeasts inhabit the different kinds of flowers, analyzing the relations between the yeasts and the flowers may reveal something useful in understanding the ecosystem and related ecological issues. We classify the yeasts in accordance with the shapes observed under microscopes, the DNA arrangements, the electrophoretic karyotyping, and their fermentation capacities.

6. The program’s effects on our students　　The SSH (Super Science High School) project offered us the opportunity to build an unprecedented program for female students. Focusing on providing practical “encounters” with nature, our curriculum forces our students to take positive leadership in their research activities, and to develop their presentation skills which are integral for communicating with an international audience. The other favorable effects on our students are shown in the charts below.
　　This year, our students are not planning to go out to distant areas for their
research activities. We have chosen to stay in our local area and take a closer look at natural creatures around our school - our institution stands on a hill surrounded by trees and paddy fields.
Currently, observing the plants on the hill and the creatures inhabiting in paddy
fields are among the students’ research assignments. Students are now eager to find out about the behaviors of the local Reeves’s pond turtles and Red-ear sliders. They will employ the “mark-and-recapture method” as well as “biotelemetry”. We would like to further continue providing education focusing on this kind of contact with animals and with nature.
　　I would like to finish with an interesting bit of information from a survey conducted by Dr. Hishoshi Nakano. In that survey one third of elementary school children answered yes when asked whether they thought dead people could live again. This was reported in newspaper articles, and critics suggested that something was desperately lacking in the education curriculum. What was lacking, many argued, was the ‘Heart-Enriching education’ which is to say the study of life and the living world. But without encountering that living world as it is, such heart-enriching education is simply not possible. I wonder if this is only true with elementary school children. What about junior high school students and high school students? What about college students, and moreover, even adults?
It is my firm belief that in our age, for all generations, real-life encounters with nature are indispensable to our education, and to live our lives as humans.

投稿者: 秋山繁治 日時: 13:42｜パーマリンク | コメント (0)

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