Toteutimme syyslukukaudella 2022 avaruusfysiikkaan ja ilmailufysiikkaan keskittyneen tiedeleirikoulun. Opiskelimme aihetta etukäteen ja kävimme ennen varsinaista tiedeleiriä tutustumassa Helsingissä Aalto-yliopistolla ja VTT:llä suomalaisten kehittämään satelliittiteknologiaan ja muihin alaan liittyviin modernin teknologian sovelluksiin.
Projektin huipennus oli tiedeleirikoulu Ranskaan Toulousen kaupunkiin 6.11. - 11.11.2022. Siellä pääkohteemme oli ESAn (Euroopan avaruusjärjestön) Cité de l’espace, joka on Euroopan suurin avaruusfysiikan tiedekeskus. Täällä tutustuimme laajasti avaruusfysiikkaan ja sen sovelluksiin sekä myös tähtitieteen tutkimukseen. Toinen suuri opintokohteemme oli AirBussin tehtaat. AirBussin tehtailla tutustumme lentoteknologiaan ja lentokoneiden valmistukseen. Näiden lisäksi tutustuimme myös alueen kultuuriin Toulousen kaupungissa ja teimme myös päivän mittaisen vierailun Carcassonen historialliseen linnoitukseen ja kaupunkiin.
Nousiaisten lukiosta mukana oli fysiikan opettajan lisäksi 6 opiskelijaa. Tiedeleirikoulu toteutettiin yhdessä TSYKin lukion luonnontiedelinjan kanssa.
Seuraavassa tekstissä meidän lukiomme vaihto-opiskelija Masamichi Hirasawa kirjoittaa omasta kokemuksestaan tiedeleirillä.
Trip to Toulouse
My dream is to become a pilot. I have been flying since I was a small child on family trips, and one time I was invited into the cockpit by the pilot as we were getting off the plane. When I was in elementary school, I read aircraft magazines in bookstores and looked at model airplanes, and my love for airplanes grew stronger as I got older.
Time passed, and I am now studying abroad in Finland. At the beginning of September, my physics teacher told me about a trip to Toulouse. I thought that we might go on a tour of the Airbus factory. The tour consisted of a visit to the Airbus factory in Toulouse and an aerospace museum. I thought it would be a rare opportunity to visit the Airbus factory in Toulouse, which is very far from Japan, so I discussed it with my family immediately and decided to go there.
The physics teacher at my high school had asked a few of his students who were taking physics classes to go with him, and I was fortunate enough to be invited as well. There were five other students from my school and about 15 students from another high school in Turku, for a total of about 20 students. On the 7th, we visited the factory and museum of Airbus, one of the world’s two largest aircraft manufacturers. At the factory, we saw the production line for Airbus newest passenger plane, the A350, which is also operated by Finnair. There were many other airplanes in production, which was heaven for me as an airplane enthusiast. We happened to see a beluga, which is used to transport airplane
wings and other parts. It is very unfortunate that photography was prohibited. I also got to see for the first time the actual Concorde, a supersonic airliner that was retired before I was born, and was able to go inside. There were more aircraft on display than at any other museum I have been to in the past, and I was able to learn more about the evolution of passenger aircraft. We also visited Space Center and the Carcassonne, an ancient castle on the World Heritage List. the Cite de l´espace had a full-scale replica of the Russian spacecraft Soyuz, a module of the International Space Station, and a rocket, which was very interesting to see. In Japanese museums, it is rare to be able to enter and touch the exhibits from the viewpoint of conservation, which is not the case in both France and Finland, and I felt that people could learn more from exhibits and be interested in them. It was a very valuable experience for me because these places were so far away from Japan and I did not have many opportunities to visit them. It was also the first time for me to take a flight within the EU, and it was very easy and convenient, similar to taking a domestic flight or Shinkansen (bullet train) in Japan.
