Due to some booking arrangements, this week’s classes were held at a different classroom, GSEP Commons at I-6. The primary focus of this week was to work on the group projects for INTA 4813 (Energy, Environment, and Policy) and INTA 4744 (Global development capstone).

Schedule of this week
7/23 (Mon): INTA4813 exam review + group work and INTA4813 group work
7/24 (Tue): INTA4813 exam and INTA4744 group work
7/25 (Wed): INTA4813 group work and INTA 4744 group work

For INTA4813 (Energy, Environment, and Policy), students are having to do a poster presentation on next Wednesday (8/1). Each group is asked  to assess policies for promoting sustainable energy security in Tokyo and Atlanta. As we discussed previously, Tokyo and Atlanta will be defined as Tokyo-to and Atlanta Regional community respectively for a purpose of this project. The poster presentation will be held during the class time and will be open to the Tokyo Tech community.

For INTA4744 (Global development capstone), students have been developing their own research topics and identified problems/puzzles. During this week,  each group worked on solving those identified issues and developing recommendations, as well as consolidating what they have researched into their research paper and PowerPoint presentation slides.  

 

7/23 (Mon)

As an exam was scheduled next day, the beginning of the class was used to briefly review the materials and concepts which would be covered in the exam.

Brian-sensei prepared a list of those important study concepts that students should know for the exam. Brian-sensei was showing that list to class, and students were asking some questions from that list in order to get some clarifications and  to get some review on them. Brian-sensei was mainly answering to their questions, but he was also encouraging students to answer. In this way, students were learning from each other, and I have seen some good discussions held among students. When one’s explanation was not enough, Brian-sensei gave more details on the concepts and related topics.

The rest of the class was used for INTA4813 group project.

Many groups were making a circle as a group, but each member was working individually on his/her tasks, such as researching on a certain topic, writing a section of paper and developing a design for a poster. Discussions were held here and there once in a while, and sometimes students came up to Brian-sensei for some advice and clarification on what they were required to do.

 

7/24 (Tue)

Today’s class started off with INTA4813 exam. Most of the students finished their exams within the first 30 minutes, and it seemed like the review session we had yesterday was helpful.

After the exam, students got together with their INTA4744 groups.

It was not required for students to stay in the classroom as the rest of the time was used for the group project, so a few groups decided to work elsewhere. The remaining groups stayed in the class, continued working on the projects until the class ended. I heard some relaxed conversations and seemed like students were enjoying to spending time together with their group members. 

 

7/25 (Wed)

The beginning of today’s class, Brian-sensei went over some important concepts that were expected to be included in INTA4813 projects. Some of them were institutional contents and disaster prevention. Both Tokyo Tech students and Georgia Tech students seemed to be in a good shape of tackling those topics as we had visited Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, experienced earthquake few times, and had been talking about flood devastation in east Japan, all within the past month.

The first 2 hours of today’s class was used for INTA4813 project. Then, the rest was used for INTA4744 group project. Meanwhile, the exam that took place on Monday were returned back to the students. It seemed like most of them did well on them as they seemed to be satisfied with the grades they got. The students kept working together in the

classroom until the end of normal lecture hour.

I am looking forward to their poster and oral presentations next week.

 

Schedule for next week:
7/30(Mon): Group work
7/31(Tue): Group work
8/1(Wed): INTA4813 poster presentations (Open to Tokyo Tech community)
8/2(Thu): INTA4744 oral presentation (Open to Tokyo Tech community)

 

Written by Kanaha Shoji
Georgia Tech Graduate (2018) in Environmental Engineering, working as a research assistant for JSPSD2018