TSUNAGU Research Project: Midterm 2 Presentation
On Saturday November 8th, the dedicated participants for this year’s TSUNAGU Research Project gathered again online to join the Midterm 2 Presentation. Over 100 participants from 13 participating schools including the external and Leave a Nest mentors joined the session.
A quick recap, TSUNAGU Research Project is an 8-month program where secondary school students from Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines get to work together to try and solve social issues with the power of research, science, and technology. For this year, the host country is the Philippines and the theme centred this time around is Environmental.
The event started with the opening remarks by Dr. Kihoko Tokue, Managing Director of Leave a Nest Singapore. Working as a field biologist before, Dr. Tokue said that, in nature, there are lots of things that are beyond your control, and the same goes when doing the research. She added that any progress made is still valuable data. The student should take the opportunity to present about their progress to get feedback from fellow researchers for further improvement.
The participants were further inspired by Mr. John Cheng, Founder and Managing Director of Innovate 360, one of our supporting partners. Mr. John presented about his inspirational journey on transitioning his family-owned traditional business into a regenerative food ecosystem in Singapore.
The participants were then divided into 4 breakout groups according to the subtopics (kadai, jiyuu-water, jiyuu-energy and jiyuu-waste) to present their research progress. Although some of the group had difficulties conducting the experiment, due to some constraints. They are really dedicated to present and discuss their research methodology and pivot plan together with the respective mentors.
The Leave a Nest mentors then presented the summary of each team for the respective subtopics in the main room so that all the participants can have the idea on what kind of research project the other teams are currently working on.
Some highlights of the research project. 
We then have a very thoughtful feedback session by Mr. Peter Jeffrey Maloles, Representative from External Mentor and an External Director of Leave a Nest Philippines, Inc. Mr. Jeffrey addressed the importance of scientific communication and the power of knowledge sharing. He also added that science not sharing is just a waste. So he encouraged the students to document their research activities and share it with the platform provided by Leave a Nest, for example the blog column in the official website.
To wrap up the Midterm 2 Presentation, we had Mr. Bryan, the Project Leader for this year’s TSUNAGU Research Project delivering his important message to all the participants. ENVI (from the word Environment) – Mr. Bryan advised the students to enjoy doing their research project, while notating the research journey and confirming the data veracity. By utilising this platform, he wants the students to inspire the others to embark in the scientific journey to advance science and technology for global happiness.
What is coming up next? Each of the research groups will have another round of mentorship for their ongoing experiment before finishing up for the final presentation scheduled in early December.
For more information about TSUNAGU Research Project kindly visit https://tsunagu.lne.st/