04-06 August 2012

We organised a really fun scientific outreach event for school kids in cooperation with the Furano Board of Education. Furano is a major agricultural region in central Hokkaido, about 3hrs drive from Sapporo. The purpose was not only to raise interest in science in school kids but also to build stronger community links between our Faculty of Agriculture and local communities in important local country areas.

During the two-day camp, the school kids looked up information about their local agricultural industry and did some great hand-made presentations that they explained in English. Each group then designed their own special curry consisting of Furano vegetables and we had a big taste-test with International Students joining the groups and giving the kdis a great chance to interact with foreign cultures while realising scientists are normal people at the same time!

For more information, check out our lab website:

In recognition of his research and activities to promote scientific collaboration between Australia-Japan, Derek has been awarded a Sir Walter Murdoch Distinguished Collaborator Award" from Murdoch University, Australia.  He has also been appointed as an Adjunct Professor at Murdoch University (commencing July 2012).

This award supports collaborative research between Hokkaido University and Murdoch University.  It ,will also benefit the research being carried out within this Correlative Gene Systems funding group by providing extra travel support for direct exchange between Derek and collaborators in Australia where some experiments are being carried out.

In addition to the research component, it is expect the Adjunct Professor position will facilitate greater academic exchange, particularly in encouraging students to consider study overseas.

Launched in Europe, the purpose of Fascination of Plants Day is to provide some coordination of different outreach events and increase the national and international profiles of different events.  There is no pre-defined format or requirements, people who are interested in holding an event to promote their research or help convey to the public the importance of plant research just get in touch with their national coordinator to get some information and register their event to increase their own profile (I'm actually one of the national coordinators for Japan too, so if you want more information just let me know!).  There is also a local japan page with listing of all the events held this year -> click here.

The official date for Fascination of Plants Day was 18 May this year, but events were held throughout the whole month of May.

Lots of photos of the event can be found on the following page:

-> click here.

Probably the best example is the following photo:

We are currently in discussions about doing a similar thing in Japan next year, it would be great to see more labs getting involved and more events being held!  If you're interested in becoming involved, just let me know!

Derek Goto

Hokkaido University