Wide Spectrum of Visitors from Okinawa in One Day

On July 9th, Okinawa Prefectural Assembly members, Okinawa City Goya Community Association members, and Okinawa Shogaku High School students visited OIST for a tour of campus facilities. These visits from different community groups offered a great occasion for OIST to strengthen relationships with the Okinawa community.

President-elect Dr. Jonathan Dorfan and Executive Director Dr. Robert Baughman joined the members of the Administrative and Planning Committee of the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly to examine OIST’s contribution to promoting economic and educational progress on the island. The visitors then visited the Marine Genomics Unit and Neurobiology Research Unit laboratories.

Okinawa Prefectural Assembly members

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Okinawa City Goya Community Association is a regional council in Okinawa City. After a brief introduction of OIST, they took a tour of the laboratory building. A member of the association said, “I want my grandchildren to study hard and work here as scientists in the future.” Later they visited HAMON, the Shinman Yamada Ceramics exhibition, where they enjoyed the ceramics and ocean views from the gallery.

Okinawa City Goya Community Association members

The students who visited from Okinawa Shogaku High School are all fans of science and technology. The experience of seeing scientists at work stimulated their interest. Students attended a lecture on marine biology from Dr. Holger Jenke-Kodama, Evolutionary Systems Biology Unit, after which they visited laboratory facilities such as the mass spectrometry and microscope rooms.

Okinawa Shogaku High School students

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Thanks to the members of the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly, Goya Community Association and Okinawa Shogaku High School for coming to OIST. Come back soon.