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Building momentum in younger generations

In order to build momentum for the realization of the ILC, Ichinoseki City created a pamphlet aimed at young audiences called ‘I see! ILC! Teach me Dr. Higgs’. The pamphlet is a collection from a popular column published in the Ichinoseki Linear Collider Newsletter ‘ILC News’ that communicates science in an easy-to-understand way and to encourage further interest in the ILC.
 

Working towards the goal of realizing the ILC’s construction, with aims to heighten interest and understanding of the ILC to its citizens, Ichinoseki City started publishing ‘ILC News’ four times a year from April 2012. The newsletter introduced seminars and lectures held in Ichinoseki City, but to capture a younger audience, ’Teach me Dr. Higgs’ was issued; the first being in July 2017 volume 21 of ‘ILC News’. All eight installments were scheduled to be published in ’ILC News’ by the end of 2018, but for the promotion of the ILC to youth, the complete pamphlet was issued in advance.
 

It features Dr. Higgs who teaches two characters, Icchan and Secchan exciting facts about the ILC and science. A senior staff member at Ichinoseki City ILC Promotion Division, Mr. Oikawa Kazunori, is in charge of planning, illustrations are taken care of by a printing company and its contents are supervised by KEK (the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization). In addition to answering simple questions like “What does the ILC research?” and “What kind of experiments will it carry out?” it also explains ‘Staging’ that will reduce the assumed length of 30km to 20km in order to curb initial investment. In the latter half it shows prospects for a future where the ILC is built in Ichinoseki.
 

Mr. Oikawa says, “I am trying to use the size of relatable facilities so that higher grades at elementary school and students at junior high school can understand” he also reveals that “The content is easy for adults to understand, so I hope that this can spark interest in the ILC and science”. The pamphlet is eight A5 pages long, and distributed at places such as Ichinoseki City Office.

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