A Gathering of University Labs for Environmental Studies | Tomohiro Ichinose, Dean of the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies
November 26, 2024
My turn to write for this Dean's Diary comes around about once every two months. This time, it came at a rather awkward moment. The deadline was Thursday, November 21, and it is scheduled to be published on Tuesday, the 26th. This means that while the SFC EXPO is coming up this weekend (the 23rd and 24th), this article will be published after it's over. It's too late to promote the SFC EXPO, and I can't report on how exciting it was either. I've been wondering what to write about since last week, but I've decided to introduce an off-campus event that I'm involved in planning.
On the afternoon of Sunday, December 8, we are scheduled to hold an event called "A Gathering of University Labs for Environmental Studies" at the Nihon University Faculty of Law (Kanda-Misakicho Campus). This event is hosted by a general incorporated association called the Center for Environmental Information Science (CEIS). The CEIS conducts various academic activities, but it also functions as an academic society, holding an annual research conference and publishing journals and proceedings in both Japanese and English. As a board member, I am involved in the management of the center, and this is the first time we have planned an event primarily targeting high school students.
Various experts, university faculty, and students participate as members in the activities of the CEIS, and the field of environmental studies alone is incredibly broad. The number of faculties and departments at universities that include the word "environment" in their names is steadily increasing. I thought it might be quite difficult for high school students interested in the environment to gather information on which university and which faculty to choose, which led us to plan this event. When we recruited members to exhibit, we received cooperation from 16 laboratories from 14 universities as of now. There are new faculties like ours with "environment" in the name, as well as laboratories belonging to faculties of engineering, agriculture, and science, and even some in departments of economics and management. Just by looking at the faculties and departments to which these laboratories belong, you can clearly see the interdisciplinary nature of the environmental field.
Since this is our first attempt, we have no idea how many high school students will participate, but faculty members, as well as undergraduate and graduate students from each laboratory, will be there to introduce their educational and research activities. For high school students interested in the environmental field, this will be a valuable opportunity to compare many different universities at once. More detailed information can be found on the Center for Environmental Information Science website below. We welcome not only high school students but also junior high school students, parents, and teachers, so please feel free to visit. Of course, I will also be at the venue to introduce the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies and the Ichinose Laboratory.