Review of SNU Marine AI, SW Experience Camp

A new system called 'external documents' appeared in the work portal, and I discovered that many interesting documents come in through it.

One day, I found a document stating there was a free lecture for high school students by Seoul National University.

I applied immediately.

The date was Thursday, July 31.

Since it was during the vacation, we were in Busan with the kids, but I went back to Seoul just for this.

1. SNU Marine AI, SW Experience Camp

That day, I realized for the first time how far SNU is.

We left home around 7:20 AM and arrived at SNU around 8:45 AM.

The size of the auditorium was large compared to the small number of 20 people.

Also, it was quite fascinating that the front screen was an LCD screen rather than a beam projector.

The first class was on data literacy by Professor Kyung-Ae Park.

We learned about marine data, eddies, geostationary satellites, and more.

The second class involved visualizing data using Python.

As a geoscience teacher who loves coding, it was quite enjoyable for me, but it might have been rather challenging for regular high school students with little coding knowledge.

Still, it was fun to solve assignments together with the kids.

For lunch, we had seolleongtang at the school's dining hall.

And I bought a cup of coffee for each kid from the convenience store.

The next session was an experiment class.

It was about directly measuring the photosynthesis process of plants related to the carbon cycle.

By shining an LED on a leaf, we measured the concentration of carbon dioxide within a chamber.

However, possibly due to a problem with the measurement equipment, our team's carbon dioxide levels kept rising even as we shone the light.

It was a bit disappointing that the CO2 measurement app was only available on Android phones.

Nonetheless, the idea of the experiment was so novel and innovative that I’d like to try it with the students at my school someday.

Then came the mentoring session with seniors.

The students were sophomores and juniors from the Department of Earth Science Education, and one mentioned dreaming of a career other than teaching.

I also felt that might be the right path.

2. Review

The camp was worth sacrificing my vacation for.

The educational ideas were innovative, and I learned many new things.

It seems like SNU is making a lot of new educational attempts.

I’d love to participate again if given the opportunity.