School of Fun for Children in Fukushima

Please find a Japanese version of this report here.

Our summer and fall camp activities have gone online as a countermeasure to COVID-19 pandemic. We have named the series of activities "Serious Research", consisting of a plenary online meeting every Sunday and continuing conversations with an online chat tool.

The series will probably continue throughout this year, but here is a mid-term report to let you know just some of the research topics the children are working on: A girl wants to find out about vegetable breeding to get rid of toxins in potatoes. A boy is investigating the differences in his brain waves when he is engaged in different intellectual activities (learning math or English, for example). A girl wants to build a new donation service using blockchain. A boy who is interested in the diet of a paleontological animal called dimetrodon tries to recreate an animated dimetrodon eating a shark.

Our staff and mentors are very excited to see how these studies will progress. At each plenary meeting, we also learn about the attitude of science, the spirit of skepticism and verification, how the results of science are shared and followed up on, and what can be considered fake science.

HELP US LITTLE BY LITTLE

Here is another important announcement! GlobalGiving has launched a "Little by Little" campaign from Sept.14 9:00am to Sept.18 11:59pm EDT (Sept.14 22:00 to Sept.19 12:59 JST), where your donations up to $50 per person will be matched 50%, and there is no limit with the matching funds! We would be very happy if you could take this great opportunity to support children not only in Fukushima, but any children with something to explore, and Academy Camp.

Links:

• Academy Camp Facebook Page in English