Team A and B members doing their best to explain the relationship of their research at the group work final presentation.

Ishikawadai B08, July 7, 2013 – Two teams of Kanda laboratory presented their final work highlighting the individual researches of their members and their relationship. The task for each group was to create a poster containing the meteorological processes within the boundary layer and their members’ respective research.

This year’s Spring semester was special for Kanda laboratory due to a particular change in the laboratory schedule. In university research laboratories, regular meetings called rinkou (which stands for textbook reading) and zemi (research update presentation or seminar) are quite common. Rinkou was intended for the younger members to deepen their knowledge regarding the lab’s theme while zemi was designed to provide a venue for a member to improve his/her research. Every semester, Kanda laboratory follows the same tradition until recently.

The textbook reading has recently become complicated for the new members. As an alternative, Kanda-sensei proposed a more interactive approach which is learning while doing. The members of the laboratory were divided into two groups comprise of the ff:

Team A – Inagaki (mentor), Alvin (captain), Makabe, Kawano, Anis, Nejime, and Mitsui

Team B – Nakayoshi (mentor), Yagi (captain), Huda, Kato, Hisazawa (guest), Eiji, Yuma, and Nicole

Every week, the staffs assign some group work. The strategy is to showcase the available data in the lab (building curiosity), before having them interpret, and discuss the findings theoretically (building comprehension). Among the tasks conducted were analysing publicly available meteorological datasets, observed cloud images, lidar images, micro radiometer readings, and one-dimensional numerical modelling. All this has to be done as a group. After each session, Kanda-sensei shares his knowledge, comments and insights for the day.

Kanda-sensei asking questions and giving hints to the presenters

To cut the story short, it ended with the final task of creating a bigger picture of the weather interactions within the boundary layer. During the final day, each group is given 5 minutes to deliver a poster presentation. After, a member from each group is called to discuss how their researches are related. For example,

LEFT: Kato and Kawano discussing how LES is relevant to localized heavy rainfall simulation using WRF
RIGHT: Eiji, Nicole, and Makabe discussing how the thermal image velocimetry (TIV) is related to the creation of urban datasets (this was tough!)

Last semester’s group work was really exciting for all members. We bonded as a lab and we deepened our knowledge in a more interesting fashion. We all wonder how it will be this Autumn. Below are additional pictures,