The 2nd Science Communication Webinar
This is a report/summary of the 1st Science Communication Webinar hosted by CDSFR. (Not every content is included). It was a great success thanks to everyone who attended. We would like to thank Dr. Watanabe and Dr. Zaima for helping us hold this webinar, high schools that displayed our posters, and everyone who participated in our webinar.
Founder and host for the 2nd SCW
Ayane Miura
2021/06/26 (Sat)
Timetable
2:00PM
Webinar starts
2:00PM-2:05PM
Opening
2:05PM-2:20PM
Professor Watanabe's speech about his research
2:20PM-2:45PM
Discussion - what's it like to be a researcher
2:45PM-2:55PM
Questions
2:55PM-3:00PM
Closing and announcements
Professor at Kindai University,
Faculty of Agriculture
Dr. Shun Watanabe
Expertise in:
- marine biology
- taxonomy
- ichthyology
- behavioral biology
Event Report
In the 2nd SCW, Dr. Watanabe shared his story of how and why Japanese eels migrate, how his team discovered their 1.6-mm eggs for the first time ever in history, and more. We've received a lot of glowing reviews from the participants, such that they really enjoyed the webinar as they could really get to learn what it's like to conduct research and what it's like to be a researcher in depth.
Clips from the Discussion
This summary was made by Ayane Miura
Why did you decide to become a researcher?
Like many of you might want to think about what you want to be in the future, the idea of becoming a researcher naturally came to me. I aspired to do what I liked as a job, and I thought I might have a chance of becoming one when there were not many of them back then.
How is research conducted?
First, you brainstorm ideas to discover something new. Then, you will have to get some funds to implement the idea. Next, you think of a hypothesis, conduct experiments, and analyze data to publish your discovery in the form of scientific paper. My mentor would often told me that you must publish a paper at the end of a research project - if you don't share the results, what's the point of conducting research in the first place?
What do you like about being a scientist?
A huge benefit of being a scientist is that you are the boss of your own projecct, and that you can do what you love as a job. Publishing research paper makes me feel good about being a researcher, because it's sort of a portfolio of your work and life as a scientist. Of course, presenting it verbally would be as good as publishing it physically in scientific papers.
What do you think will happen to the world of researchers in the future?
Unlike the old days, I think a large part of research projects will be all done by AI due to the development of new technologies. Then, what makes a good research project might be going to be the qualities of the idea and the project itself. Like Mendel left records of peas he observed, you could be recognized later in history for what you did as a researcher as long as you record your works in research papers. To summarize, I think it'd be crucial for scientists in the future to publish and record their research projects at high qualities.