Group 6

06/20 Meeting Report

Today the group re-introduced themselves and presented their research topic ideas to their partner schools. The PSHS-CARC students shared their topic of interest which was extracting heavy metals from plants. The Metallophytes, which is the type of plant to be used, are plants that can tolerate heavy metals like Iron and Copper. The extraction of heavy metals from plants can be used as an alternative to mining heavy metals that cause different environmental problems. However, further research is still needed to find specific plant species and locations that are suitable for the extraction of heavy metals.

Additionally, the Fukushima High School students also presented their topic of interest. In Japan, carrots are thrown away and are greatly wasted. Thus, a sample of wasted carrots was studied to be a substitute for making paper towels. Paper towels were successfully created, but the hydrophilicity of the paper and the utilization of other varieties of carrots are yet to be studied. Furthermore, the schools discussed alternative food crops that are wasted not only in Japan but also in the Philippines. It was revealed that rice husks, a by-product of harvesting rice, are massively produced in both the Philippines and Japan and are thrown away when rice is being sold. Therefore, the group agreed that it was an interesting alternative to study about.

Further discussions about different research ideas and suggestions will be done on Slack. The next meeting will be on June 27, 2022, 5:00 PM JST. During the next meeting, the group plans on better understanding the topics presented this week and hopefully finalize the research topic.

06/13 Meeting Report

Today the following were accomplished:

- Introductions of students and sharing of different cultures and our schools.

- A time and date were chosen for the next meeting which will be about our research itself: June 20, 2022 at 17:00 - 18:00 JST.