October 13, 2022, approximately 110 fifth-year elementary school students and accompanying teachers from the Faculty of Education of Ibaraki University visited T-PIRC.
In the morning, the participants were divided into three groups (Director of T-PIRC Fukuda, Director Kato, and General Manager Yokoyama) at the farm and visited paddy fields, upland cultivation, orchards, greenhouses, and livestock areas. The elementary school students were able to walk around and see many crops being cultivated and researched on the vast T-PIRC farm, and experience up close how tomatoes and other products they usually eat are being improved and researched with production technology for the next generation.
In the afternoon, at the University Hall, we participated in a special lecture by Professor Hiroshi Shiba titled “Let’s think about the future of food” and a special lecture by assistant Professor Mariko Takayama titled “Tomato Breeding Using Plant Biotechnology ~ Application Examples of Genome Editing Technology,” where she explained in an easy-to-understand manner what plant biotechnology is and what is great about genome editing technology. The students, who experienced the university lecture style for the first time, had a radiant face, saying, “The University of Tsukuba is cool.”
During the Q&A session, many students bombarded the teachers with questions, and it was a great success, exceeding the scheduled time. If you find interests of plant biotechnology research, genetic recombination technology, and genome editing technology interesting, please come and study at the University of Tsukuba!
