Kits Help Students Study Global Warming in Classrooms

Copyright Sendai Sokkisya Co.

"Let children learn about environmental issues through the experience of watching the global warming mechanism in the laboratory!" This wish of enthusiastic teachers has come true in the form of a teaching kit that has two models of the Earth, each floating in a transparent container. It is already being used in the classrooms of three junior high schools in the Tohoku Region in northern Japan.

The kits are the product of Sendai Sokkisya Co., in Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture. The set contains two transparent acrylic balls about 30 centimeters in diameter, each containing a miniature globe; one ball is filled with air and the other with carbon dioxide. After about 30 minutes of exposure even to artificial lighting (instead of sunlight) in the laboratory, a temperature difference of 4 degrees C can be observed between the two balls. Similar results can be obtained in outdoor experiments, too. The kit is priced as 65,000 yen (U.S. $596).

Sendai Sokkisya got the idea for these laboratory kits in the fall of 2003 from the Tohoku branch of the Energy Conservation Center, Japan (ECCJ), which has been promoting environmental education. The teachers' enthusiasm convinced Sendai Sokkisya to start manufacturing the kits, which have been well received by the teachers.

So far five teaching kit sets have been manufactured and used at schools and other venues. After the kit was introduced at a number of environmental seminars, exhibitions and even on TV, the company received inquiries from a variety of environmental organizations across the nation. Masayuki Sasaki of the ECCJ Tohoku branch says, "Visual impacts are very effective for children. I hope many more children will become aware of environmental problems using this kit."



Posted: 2004/12/02 03:20:01 PM
Japanese version