People : High School Students as the Representatives of Japan for the Third APEC Youth Science Festival: Mr. Sakamoto Hiroki & Mr. Shibata Shun

Mr. Sakamoto Hiroki (photograph left) Third-Year Student at Waseda University Honjo High School. President of ‘Super Science Club'. Wrote a paper about the correlation of the habitation environment of the Foraminifera (Stellar Sand) and the Dinosaurs in collaboration with the curator of the Gumma prefectural Natural History Museum. Mr. Shibata Shun (photograph right) Third-Year Student at Waseda University Honjo High School. Vice-President of ‘Super Science Club'. Chairperson of the School Library Committee. Nominated as a finalist for the ‘E and Challenge Prize' 2003 by the Asahi Newspaper JSEC (Japan Science and Engineering Challenge), and awarded a Finalist Prize.

Mr. Sakamoto and Mr. Shibata, both at Honjo High School, were selected as representatives of Japan for the international science experience program "Third APEC Youth Science Festival (AYSF)", which is organized for the youth of 21 nations affiliated with APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation). They are two of five male and five female students selected from those who study at the "Super Science High schools" (SSH), special schools designated by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. In August, they will give presentations on their research and inventions and participate in cultural exchanges for a week in Beijing, China, with about 800 high school students from around the world. The main events are group research activities. The participants will complete research papers and also give presentations in English, so they are studying English intensively.

At Honjo high school, the electronics club was re-organized as the Super Science club after the school was designated a SSH in 2002. "In this club, we aimed at research that could be evaluated objectively, such as by applying for contests" says Mr. Toru Kagemori, the faculty advisor for the club. Some of the club's achievements are researching the ecosystem at Mt Kinka, and winning the Judge's Special Prize at the Sai-no-Kuni Science Grand-Prix in Saitama prefecture.

Both Mr. Sakamoto and Mr. Shibata are involved in research at the club almost every day. Mr. Sakamoto's theme is iron bacteria, which eat iron and live in groundwater or similar environments. He is now studying whether it is possible to extract only the iron by decomposing the bacteria with a photo catalyst. Shibata's theme is a lifter (floating apparatus). He hopes to verify the theory that the lifter will float in the air when thirty to forty thousand volts of electric current is passed through the wire on top.

The AYSF is "a good incentive", says Mr. Sakamoto. "I want to find a clue to the theory of lifters", says Mr. Shibata. Their eyes are shining brightly, reflecting the infinite possibilities spread out before them.