[G-01] Outreach of Geoscience: Practice and Theory

[G01-07] Collaboration with a Virtual YouTuber in outreach activities at SGEPSS

★Invited Papers

*Shotaro Sakai^1,2, Go Murakami³, Masahisa Kato⁴, Takuya Sori⁵, Mizuki Fukizawa⁶, Naritoshi Kitamura⁷, Natsuko Matsushita², Yuka Sato⁸, Toru Kouyama⁹, Hiroyasu Tadokoro¹⁰, Kazushi Asamura³, STEPLE WG¹¹, SGEPSS Outreach Subcommittee¹¹ (1.Department of Geophysics, Graduate School of Science, Tohoku University, 2.Planetary Plasma and Atmospheric Research Center, Graduate School of Science, Tohoku University, 3.Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, 4.Division of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University, 5.Research Institute for Sustainable Humanosphere, Kyoto University, 6.National Institute of Polar Research, 7.Institute for Space and Earth Environmental Research, Nagoya University, 8.Liberal Arts and Sciences, Nippon Institute of Technology, 9.National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, 10.Department of Data Science, Faculty of Informatics, Tohoku Gakuin University, 11.Society of Geomagnetism and Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences)

Keywords:Outreach, Academic Society, Virtual YouTuber

At the Society of Geomagnetism and Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences (SGEPSS), an outreach event has been conducted annually during the fall meeting as part of public relations activities. This event is designed to communicate Earth and planetary sciences in an accessible manner to visitors through exhibits and experiments by researchers from various fields. In past years, flyers for the event were distributed to elementary schools in the hosting region, which resulted in most participants being elementary school-aged children and their guardians. However, this also meant that the participant demographic was largely limited to this group, highlighting the need to expand the audience for the event. To address this challenge, the 2024 event aimed to reach a broader audience by collaborating with a popular Virtual YouTuber (VTuber) specializing in planetary science. This collaboration involved live streaming the event on YouTube, allowing those unable to attend in person to participate online. Furthermore, the archived video remains available on YouTube, enabling access to the content for individuals who could not join in real-time, thus successfully reaching a wider demographic. According to YouTube Analytics, the broadcast was particularly popular among viewers in their 20s to 40s. The presentation will detail the VTuber collaboration project, including a report on the day’s activities. Additionally, an outreach project launched in June 2024 by the SGEPSS young members outreach project, STEPLE (Space, TErrestrial and Planetary LEctures), involving collaboration with the VTuber to showcase university laboratories, will be introduced.

SGEPSS x VTuber Collaboration:
https://www.youtube.com/live/kufV-Bm1OLc?feature=shared
STEPLE x VTuber:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHFwuDVA8MgaZMQdM4yDRY4ZrN8ntw3Rn