Experiences of Students in Basic Subjects 8/4-8/31 in August 2015.

The fieldwork at the Spasskaya Pad in Yakutsk was very fruitful. The Field training of environmental science in the Arctic provided students with opportunities to analyze elements of nature and vegetation in the permafrost of the Arctic Circle. The group I was in dug through to the permafrost in larch and pine forests there and sampled soil at different depths.

We compared the weight, humidity, temperature, saturated water content and other properties of the samples, and then assessed and discussed the field capacity and other properties of forest soils at the Spasskaya Pad station. The discussion was based entirely on what we’d learned in classroom lectures, and was challenging for me because it was in an area completely outside the field of my research.

However, the experience was refreshing and motivated me to consider the natural environment more.

As the field practice was attended by students from North-Eastern Federal University in addition to those from Hokkaido University, it included events for the promotion of cultural exchanges between Japan and Russia.

We Japanese students taught the others about calligraphy, origami and suikawari. I found it difficult to talk about our culture in English. The Russian students knew more about Japanese culture than we’d expected; I was dismayed because we couldn’t match their origami skills!

The students of North-Eastern Federal University talked about aspects of culture in the Sakha Republic. Some of the traditional games they highlighted were based on a way of thinking completely different from ours, and others were similar to how they’re played in Japan. We had a great time.

On the last day after the field practice, we went to the Permafrost Kingdom and had Russian food at a nearby restaurant. The museum in the permafrost is known for its low temperatures and fantastic ice sculptures. We learned about Sakha food customs at the restaurant.

All in all, my stay in Far Eastern Siberia was a great experience. Everything was new to me – a beautiful starry sky with an artificial satellite in orbit, asphalt pavement partially destroyed by permafrost, and a sun that doesn’t set due to the high latitude.

Sweating with a shovel in the forest was certainly different from my usual days of analysis in a laboratory. I wouldn’t have experienced any of this without the RJE3 Program, so I’m truly glad to have been a part of it. I’d like to thank everybody at the Central Office for theJE3 Program and the Sugimoto Lab for their kind support.