What is "Jump to Science"?

Jump to Science is an event where visually impaired elementary, junior high, and high school students can have opportunities to interact, learn, and experience each other through science. The event is divided into chapters in different regions throughout Japan, and is also an annual event.

(For more information, please visit the Jump to Science website.)

Background to Participation

Curascopium was able to make contact with Rie Sakuma, a teacher at Fukushima Prefectural Sukagawa Support School, through this activity. Ms. Sakuma has been actively devising and creating models and other visually-assisted learning tools for her space classes, and was in charge of the space class at the Jump to Science in Tohoku held at Miyagi University of Education on November 18, 2023. After getting acquainted with Mr. Sakuma, Takeshi Nagasawa, a member of Curascopium, participated as an assistant in Mr. Sakuma's class.

On the day

The day was divided into morning and afternoon sessions, with students from elementary to junior high school and their parents from the Tohoku region in attendance. Each of the five or more classes and hands-on sessions were conducted by teachers and university students involved in a variety of visual aids, and were rich in subject matter and content.

Mr. Sakuma took both the morning and afternoon sessions, participating in the morning session as an assistant and actually observing the various classes in the afternoon session.

I will not go into the specifics of each class, but it seemed to me that “hands-on” was an important aspect of each class. In each class, students had many opportunities to touch models and participate in hands-on activities. The faculty guides were there to guide the students, and communication with the students was realized.

At the same time,

The small number of visually impaired students in the class means that they do not have many opportunities to interact with other students of the same age group.

The Jump to Science program also served as an opportunity for exchange.

Future Prospects

Although Curascopium is still facing various issues, we will continue to participate in future events such as Jump to Science based on the experience gained from this Jump to Science event, and work to solve the current problems in visually-impaired education.