Journal

   On October 31st, forty students from ourhigh school took part in the virtual event of “The Stars are Calling Us: the 20thannual Astronaut Lacy Veach Day of Discovery.” This program has been conductedby Hawaii Space Grant Consortium in order to promote STEM education in schools,and is expected to develop the students’ scientific minds.

   Due to the time zone difference betweenMatsuyama and Hawaii, the program started as early as 07:00 local time. Despitethis, students attentively listened to lectures of the professors, and byjoining the program, they came to realize the importance of challengingthemselves with new things.

Lectures:

The Stars areCalling Us: the 20th annual Astronaut Lacy Veach Day of Discovery

〇Astronaut Megan McArthur from the International Space Station

〇Brianne Kehau Yamada, Power Supply Engineer, Design II, Hawaiian　Electric

〇Shelee Kimura, Senior Vice President, Customer Service and Consumer Affairs,Hawaiʻian Electric

〇Governor David Ige, Governor, State of Hawaiʻi

〇Dr. Heather Kaluna, Assistant Professor of Astronomy, University of Hawaiʻi Hilo

Mini hands onSTEM Workshops:

〇Bernoulli: how things fly (Bryan Silver, Kalani High School)

〇Microgravity: why do you float in space? (Hawaii SpaceFlight Laboratory)

〇Chromatography: separating pigments (Dr. Kate Perrault,Chaminade University I am a Scientist program)

〇Forensic Science: Fingerprints (Cynthia Cheung, ChaminadeUniversity )

〇Chemistry of Butter (Dr. Francis Sakai-Kawada, Chaminade University )

〇Chemistry of Ice Cream (Dr. Kate Perrault, Chaminade University )

〇Squishy Circuits using dough (Hawaiian Electric)

〇Nature Math: Fibonacci Sequence (Ethan and Maya Kimura)

STEM Magic(Harvey Ouchi and Ron Ishimaru, Hawaii Magicians)

〇Data Science: Clustering your kitchen utensils (Dr. Laura Tipton,ChaminadeUniversity I am a Scientist program)

STEM stars

〇Amber Imai-Hong, Avionics Engineer, Hawaiʻi Space FlightLaboratory,University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

〇Brialyn Onodera, Thermal Systems Engineer, National Solar Observatory,Maui

〇Nicole Yamase, PhD candidate, Marine Biology, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

〇Christianne Izumigawa, Computer Engineer, Naval Information WarfareCenter 

〇Christina Felicitas, RF/Microwave Design Engineer, NorthrupGrumman,Redeondo Beach

Acomment from a student: On that day,scientists and research students of the university taught us the fun of sciencethrough various experiments and observation.  I was particularly interested in theexperiment that explained how rockets are able to fly.  This was explained straightforwardly bycomparing balloons to beach balls.  Atthe lecture, I was able to learn both the fun of space engineering and thenatural English spoken by native speakers, which was a valuable experience forme. ― Sakura KUBO, Class 106