On July 4, the Ichinoseki City Government kicked off this fiscal year’s special lecture series on the ILC at Ichinoseki Junior High School in Mashiba (246 students). Helming the lecture the ILC and elementary particles was a researcher from Japan’s High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) in Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture, which has been involved with the effort to bring the ILC to the Kitakami mountains of Iwate.

About 90 second-year students attended the lecture, where researcher Masakazu Kurata of KEK taught the different types of elementary particles, how the universe was formed, and gave an outline of the linear collider device to be used at the ILC facility. He also used dry ice and alcohol to perform a simple experiment where students could see the trails left behind by particles, and explained what sorts of experiments would be held at the ILC.

Mr. Kurata said, “There is no other candidate site for the ILC in the world besides the Kitakami mountains. I hope that there are some future researchers in this classroom today.”

One students, Yusuke Kitada, said, “I was surprised that the ILC, which will be made with the cooperation of many different countries, may come to Japan. I like science, so I hope I can get involved with the experiments.”

The same lecture was also held on the same day at Hanaizumi JHS. This lecture series was started in the 2016 fiscal year, and is planned for all junior high schools in Ichinoseki in the 2017 fiscal year.