| Location | 2843, Ishinden-cho, Tsu-shi, Mie |
|---|---|
| TEL. | (+81)59-232-2004 |
| Website | http://www.mie-takada-hj.ed.jp/hj4/ |
| Membership | 2022 |
2025 Annual Report
Climate change, Energy, Environment, Cultural diversity, International understanding, Peace, Human rights, Dietary education, Biosphere reserves, Global Citizenship Education (GCED)
This year marks the fourth year since our school became a UNESCO Associated School. We focused on strengthening a school-wide system to promote activities as a UNESCO Associated School.
In the field of environmental education, our school has set a major goal of becoming a zero-carbon school by 2050 and has been carrying out continuous initiatives since 2017. Specifically, students measure the amount of CO₂ emissions on campus and visualize the results on monitors within the school. In addition, they conduct learning activities to investigate the amount of CO₂ absorbed by individual trees in the forest of Takada Honzan Senjuji Temple, which is adjacent to our school.
Building on these ongoing environmental education programs, students and teachers from Datong Senior High School in Taiwan, with whom we have maintained a long-standing exchange, visited our school in May. They stayed for one night and two days, participated in classes, and took part in exchange activities with our students.
In December, we also held an online meeting with students from Durga Datta Secondary School in Nepal, during which our students gave presentations on the environmental education activities we have been conducting. Through these international exchanges based on the shared theme of environmental issues, students gained valuable opportunities to view global challenges as issues directly connected to their own lives.
Furthermore, starting this academic year, we launched a new exchange program with Chungbuk Foreign Language High School in Cheongju City, South Korea. From our school, mainly first- and second-year high school students participated, while approximately 40 students from the Japanese and English Departments of Chungbuk Foreign Language High School joined the program.
As the first stage of the exchange, students wrote letters using both their native languages and English and exchanged them with each other. In addition, members of our student council engaged in making umeboshi (Japanese pickled plums) as an activity to deepen their understanding of traditional Japanese food culture. They created a video documenting the process and sent it to Chungbuk Foreign Language High School.
During the second semester, we held several online exchange sessions. Students from our school introduced our school cultural festival and created presentation slides about Nagasaki, which they visited on their school excursion, sharing their thoughts on the importance of peace. Meanwhile, students from Chungbuk Foreign Language High School presented a school introduction video, performed voice-overs for Japanese manga scenes, and gave presentations on picture books they had created with the SDGs as the main theme.
Through these exchange activities, students encountered cultures and values that they had not known before, even in countries that are geographically and culturally close to Japan. As a result, these programs provided them with valuable opportunities to deepen their international understanding.
In this way, this school year has been one in which we steadily deepened students’ learning in environmental education and intercultural understanding through exchanges with schools in neighboring countries.
Annual Work Plan
Based on this year’s environmental education and cultural exchange initiatives, we plan to further strengthen and build upon these programs in the coming year.
With regard to environmental education, we will continue measuring and monitoring CO₂ emissions and absorption. In particular, we aim to increase opportunities for collaborative learning through closer cooperation with students in Taiwan and Nepal.
In addition, we plan to further deepen our exchange with Chungbuk Foreign Language High School in South Korea next year. By making use of the specialized subject periods offered in the Type II Special Selection Class at our school, we intend to incorporate these exchange activities systematically into the year-long curriculum.
During these class periods, in addition to the letter exchanges and video letter projects conducted in the previous year, students from Japan and South Korea will collaboratively engage in inquiry-based learning activities based on shared themes.
As a shared theme, we plan to focus on “food” in Japan and South Korea, incorporating learning activities related to improving food self-sufficiency and preserving traditional food culture.
Through these activities, as the year 2030 steadily approaches, we aim to further strengthen our efforts toward achieving the SDGs and to foster the next generation of leaders who will take responsibility for building a sustainable future.