e-ShortNews

The year 2005 was a memorable year ? a century after the so-called miraculous year of physics when Einstein published a paper on “the special theory of relativity” and others, that had a strong impact on people. UNESCO declared 2005 to be the World Year of Physics. ‘The Year of Physics’ may sound quite abstruse and give an image of a lofty world far from the lives of ordinary people. We tend to back away thinking that the fields of science, including physics, are too difficult to understand.
In the modern society we live in, however, we greatly benefit from various fields of science, not only physics.
Looking back on our UNESCO activities, those for international cooperation and cross-cultural understanding were very remarkable, but they were somewhat inclined to aim at “mutual benefit” so to speak ? absorbing knowledge from foreign people as well as offering Japanese language education and promoting understanding of our country. No doubt they are very important activities, but we regret that we have been rather indifferent to what the letter S in UNESCO stands for ? Science.
Now is the time to improve our activity plan, adding programs to cultivate and stimulate elementary and junior high school students’ interest in UNESCO activities, and also in scientific matters. Our aim this year is to carry out activities in every field of education, science and culture.
Now in 2006, we have just started our “Junior Club CHIKYU” designed for elementary and junior high school students.We would like to help promote active interest in science education, which people are now talking about, in cooperation with the local community and develop programs that will make children learn about recent science and understand the relationship between humans and science. That is our New Year’s resolution.

Takashi Saito, Vice President of Meguro UNESCO Association