Experiential education takes students on a journey through history

[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/Hiroshima.jpg” caption=”Students in professor Fiona McNeill’s Medical Physics and Applied Radiation Sciences course stand in front of one of the few buildings to survive the atomic bomb that was dropped over Hiroshima during WWII. “]When asked what she hoped her students get out of Inquiry 4SZ3/777, a Medical Physics and Applied Radiation Sciences course offered to both undergraduate and graduate students, professor Fiona McNeill said she hopes students learn that “humans are really the same everywhere.”

While this may seem like a strange objective for a course in the sciences, it is likely an unavoidable consequence of visiting Hiroshima, which constitutes the basis of the course.

The practical aim of the course is to study the long- and short-term effects of nuclear weapons on people and society by visiting the site of the world's introduction to the atomic bomb.

In this regard, the trip offers a unique opportunity to students in the Faculty of Science to collect information from one of the few places where people have been subjected to a nuclear attack. The opportunity to visit the Radiation Effects Research Program and spend a day working with some of the most well-known researchers in the field is also offered.

“An amazing amount of information is available there,” said McNeill, “The basis of [most of what we know about the effects of radiation] is from Hiroshima.”

Students work in groups to gather information, and prepare group reports and presentations upon returning to McMaster.

However, the trip offers a unique opportunity for students to learn about science in its broader social contexts. Visits to the Peace Memorial Hall, a sanctuary at Miyajima and two-night home-stays with Japanese families are all integral social parts of the trip.

The course is planned so that students are in Hiroshima during the fire festival, where visitors and citizens pay their respects to those who lost their lives in the bombing. In addition, students who went on the last trip met Seiko Ideka, a survivor of the bombing and an international peace activist who has battled acute radiation sickness.

This type of innovative experiential education, especially at the undergraduate level, is unique to McMaster.

Inquiry 4SZ3 is offered every two years to students in any level IV Honours Sciences program through the Department of Medical Physics and Applied Radiation Sciences.