Event Report: Be Experimental

Sep 9, 2024

This year, KYURIOUS proudly hosted the event “Be Experimental” at Kyushu University, an interactive event made to engage with high school students from across Japan to learn about the fundamentals of scientific experiments. We were thrilled to welcome students from diverse regions, including Osaka and various cities throughout Kyushu, who traveled to our campus to participate in this event.

The event kicked off with an insightful lecture by Douglas Drummond, the head of the IUPE department. He covered essential experiment basics, such as laboratory safety and pipetting skills, to set a strong foundation for the day’s activities. Following this, Ogino Sensei from our IUPE teaching staff took the stage to discuss an intriguing biological phenomenon—the sex change in medaka fish triggered by environmental stimuli. This lecture will serve as the background of the following experiment class. We believe it was such a unique experience to be able to directly apply the theory from the lecture to hands on experiments on the same day.

Post-lecture, the hands-on experiments began. Guided by our knowledgeable KYURIOUS members serving as experiment assistants, the students embarked on various basic biology experiments. On this day, we were to compare the phenotype and genotype of the medaka fish using molecular biology techniques.

In between the experiments, the students were able to chit chat with our KYURIOUS members, exchanging useful information about their journey to start university. They also had the chance to visit the laboratory of our KYURIOUS members.

Watching students from all over the country come together to learn and explore was truly inspiring. We look forward to continuing this tradition and hope to see many of these faces join our Kyushu University community in the future!