The Okayama University Graduate School of Natural Science and Technology hosted the 7th Research Presentation and Forum for High School and Post-Graduate Students at the 50th Anniversary Hall on July 31. The event was attended by some 550 people, including students from 18 high schools throughout Okayama and other prefectures in addition to graduate students at Okayama University, who unveiled the research they are working on and took the opportunity to interact with others in the field.
81 high school researches and 21 graduate student researches were presented, either on stage or on posters. The high school projects were very broad in range, including everything from close-to-home subjects such as “The Effects of Sugar on Lactic Acid Fermentation in Matsun (Caspian Sea Yogurt)” and “Are There Definite Ways to Win at Video Games?” to those inspired by the horrors of the Great East Japan Earthquake such as “Plant Hormones and Salt Stress” and “How to Make Tsunami Hazard Maps with Pin-point Accuracy.” Their post-graduate counterparts unveiled all sorts of frontier studies, including control systems for autonomous mobile robots and sound wave-powered motors for ultra-low-temperature environments.
The high school students were quite nervous about presenting their research and they began to team up to provide answers in reply to the rapid-fire questions and suggestions from their senior peers about why they chose their particular research topics and more efficient methods of experimentation—just like a real academic society presentation.

< Photo > High school students show posters outlining their research projects