Utilization of Rice Field and Swampy Land for Environmental Education in School: Concept and contents of the project

Abstract The Environmental Education Center (EEC) was established in Miyagi University of Education in 1997. The center aims to provide students and teachers in this area with a facility in which they can study and do some research on the environment in cooperation with the city and prefectural governments. Environmental problems are now issues all over the world. We believe that environmental education will play a significant role as an effective means to change our awareness and behavior for our surrounding environment. Our activities are based on three fundamental pillows: (1) Field Museum Plan, (2) School Education Supporting System by use of Internet, and (3) Friendship Project. We are doing some research projects of the field museum plan. One of these plans is "Utilization of rice field and swampy land for environmental education in school". First in the present paper, concept and contents of the project is mentioned. In the project, remote sensing techniques was used to collect data on the environmental factors. To assist children's learning at school, we made CD ROM pictorials and cyberpedia of the microorganisms in the field. In the friendship project, students learned the environment of the field with children. These activities have been continued for three years by supporting many persons of Prefectural government, City government, a NGO, an enterprise and farmers

Heating-free, room-temperature operation of a radiofrequency-to-light signal transducer with a membrane oscillator and a built-in metasurface mirror

We present an electro-mechano-optical radiofrequency (rf)-to-light signal transducer robust against laser heating and thus operational at room temperature. A metal-free, low-loss metasurface mirror and an aluminum electrode made separately on a Si₃N₄ membrane oscillator comprise a chain of electro-mechanical and opto-mechanical systems, mediating electrical and optical signals through the (2, 2)-mode characteristic oscillation. We demonstrate up-conversion of rf signals at 175.2 MHz by 6 orders of magnitude in frequency to an optical regime with the transfer efficiency of 2.3 × 10⁻⁹, also showing stable operation due to reduced laser heating of the mirror

The seasonal variations of atmospheric 134,137Cs activity and possible host particles for their resuspension in the contaminated areas of Tsushima and Yamakiya, Fukushima, Japan

A large quantity of radionuclides was released by the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident in March 2011, and those deposited on ground and vegetation could return to the atmosphere through resuspension processes. Although the resuspension has been proposed to occur with wind blow, biomass burning, ecosystem activities, etc., the dominant process in contaminated areas of Fukushima is not fully understood. We have examined the resuspension process of radiocesium (134,137Cs) based on long-term measurements of the atmospheric concentration of radiocesium activity (the radiocesium concentration) at four sites in the contaminated areas of Fukushima as well as the aerosol characteristic observations by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and the measurement of the biomass burning tracer, levoglucosan.The radiocesium concentrations at all sites showed a similar seasonal variation: low from winter to early spring and high from late spring to early autumn. In late spring, they showed positive peaks that coincided with the wind speed peaks. However, in summer and autumn, they were correlated positively with atmospheric temperature but negatively with wind speed. These results differed from previous studies based on data at urban sites. The difference of radiocesium concentrations at two sites, which are located within a 1 km range but have different degrees of surface contamination, was large from winter to late spring and small in summer and autumn, indicating that resuspension occurs locally and/or that atmospheric radiocesium was not well mixed in winter/spring, and it was opposite in summer/autumn. These results suggest that the resuspension processes and the host particles of the radiocesium resuspension changed seasonally. The SEM analyses showed that the dominant coarse particles in summer and autumn were organic ones, such as pollen, spores, and microorganisms. Biological activities in forest ecosystems can contribute considerably to the radiocesium resuspension in these seasons. During winter and spring, soil, mineral, and vegetation debris were predominant coarse particles in the atmosphere, and the radiocesium resuspension in these seasons can be attributed to the wind blow of these particles. Any proofs that biomass burning had a significant impact on atmospheric radiocesium were not found in the present study

Detection of the atmospheric pressure depression in the center of Tokyo using data corrected by assuming hydrostatic equilibrium : A case study when a typical urban heat island existed in the center of Tokyo at nighttime summer

The present study represents the first ever investigation of the atmospheric pressure distribution in the Tokyo ward area at nighttime in summer using observational data. Data were sourced from Tokyo\u27s high density Metropolitan Environmental Temperature and Rainfall Observation System (METROS). The METROS data required correction in order to determine the detailed pressure distribution in the city, due to the instrument errors specific to each station. Since the METROS observational instruments had already been removed, we corrected the atmospheric pressure data using measured pressure differences between the Tokyo Meteorological Observatory and each METROS station, at a time when the temperature at each METROS station was equal to that at the Tokyo Meteorological Observatory, based on temperature measurements under hydrostatic equilibrium conditions. The corrected pressure distribution calculated in this study was found to be reasonable because it was spatially consistent with the air temperature distribution, wind system, and convergence zone. In a case study when a typical urban heat island existed in the center of Tokyo, we detected a significant atmospheric pressure decrease of 0.2 or 0.3 hPa in the center of Tokyo compared to surrounding areas