There have been growing concerns over recent years that environmental change is reaching the point where our continued existence on Earth might be threatened.  This is one of the most pressing issues that today’s youth must face.  This program’s goal was to provide its participants with the opportunity to look at, think about, and deeply discuss environmental issues, and to develop ideas for creating a better future.  The theme “Efficient energy consumption for a sustainable society” was the core theme of the conference.

19 high school students (7 from Japan, 6 from Thailand and 6 from the U.S.) participated in the program this year.




Pre-conference assignment：

In mid-June participants were given a pre-conference assignment.  Each participant researched current problems related to energy consumption on 3 levels; a) on the earth b) in their country c) in their city, and sought for solutions to these problems.  The results were then shared on the conference website.  This helped the participants understand what kind of problems and interests other participants were facing.  At the same time, the assignment provided the participants with an idea of the kind of people who would get together at the upcoming camp.
The main feature of this program, the camp, was then held from July 22nd to July 28th at the Toshiba Training Center near Shin-Yokohama.  A total of 19 high school students and 11 teachers gathered and spent one week full of activities and excitement together.
 

Camp：





7.22 (Tue)  Day 1 <Orientation>

In the early evening, Japanese students arrived at the training center and after a short orientation session discussed where they would like to bring the foreign students in Tokyo.  Later at night, the students from Thailand and the U.S. arrived.  All looked tired from a long trip but at the same time excited about the upcoming week.

 7.23 (Wed)  Day 2 <Opening ceremony and Team building workshops>

After the opening ceremony, we had team-building workshops around the theme “Characteristics of a global leader”.  Although this was the first time for the students to interact with each other, with everyone’s common interest for the environment, it was amazingly easy for everyone to start to talk and get to know each other. 

In the afternoon, a students-only workshop took place, where the students took a look at various cultural differences between America, Japan and Thailand.  Each country group was asked to have a discussion in their native language as everyone else sat surrounding them and observed their communication styles.  They observed the students’ ways of talking, facial expressions, gestures, and ways of listening to each other.  Everyone learned together about different communication style characteristics for each country.  After that, they learned about non-verbal communication and established signs in their original sign language to express “I don’t understand”, or “could you speak more slowly?” for this camp.  These workshops made both native and non-native speakers of English aware of the language and culture barriers that they might encounter while communicating with each other.  After dinner, students presented their pre-conference assignments.

The teacher program consisted of two presentations: “Sustainable social system and Permaculture” by Professor Itonaga of Nihon University and “Science and Technologies for Sustainability” by Mr. Matsuura of Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Tokyo.

In order to ensure mingling across nationalities, a “buddy team” system was set up during the camp.  One buddy team consisted of 3-4 students, with each team including at least one person from each participating country.  Each buddy group was asked to meet daily to discuss how each buddy was doing mentally and physically.  There also was an “Open Space” time every night after the day’s program ended.  Students came out to Open Space to chat in a relaxed setting, get to know more of each other and introduce each others’ cultures.  

 7.24 (Thu)  Day3 <Japan Day>

We left the training center by bus in the morning for Nihon University College of Bioresource Sciences. Professor Itonaga explained about the design of the school facilities and introduced Permaculture and Eco-villages in his lecture. We also took a tour in the school and observed the eco-friendly facilities with many plants and solar energy systems.

In the afternoon, we experienced Zazen meditation at Engaku-ji temple in Kamakura and visited Kamakura Old Pottery Museum where we saw ingenious Japanese traditional architecture techniques.  After the museum visit, everybody took the local train to a Japanese Ryokan Inn in Enoshima where we spent the night.  The participants especially from Thailand and the U.S. seemed to be a little confused about the ryokan, with Japanese styles bedrooms and Japanese baths but this became an opportunity for them to experience Japanese culture.

  7.25 (Fri)  Day 4 <Toshiba Day>

Field trip to Toshiba facilities.  In the morning, we went to the Toshiba Science Museum where we listened to presentations from Toshiba Japan, Thailand and America about Toshiba’s attitude and actions towards the environment and ecology.   After that, we visited the Toshiba Science Museum.  In the afternoon, we took the bus to Isogo Nuclear Engineering Center (IEC) and to Toshiba Advanced Micro Electronics Center (AMC).  At IEC, we went into the clean room wearing a full body dust-repellent suit and saw the manufacturing line of semiconductor wafers.  At AMC, we learned about atomic energy policies and visited a full-scale nuclear power reactor model.  Participants seemed to be very excited to go into places that are usually closed to the public.

 7.26 (Sat)  Day 5 <World Café>

We had a “World Café” day.  The conference room was arranged just like a café where students, teachers, and Toshiba volunteer staff members sat down and using the “World Café” technique, learned how to bring a discussion to a deeper level.  The themes were “What is the deeper meaning of the last several days?”’, “What was the purpose of the field trip?”. After lunch, we continued the discussion with “What is the most important environmental problem for you and why?”, “What is the connection between your concern with others’?”, “What can you do or what Toshiba can do for the solution of the problem?”, “What do you expect from Toshiba for the solution?”, “To make the solution happen, what can you do?”.

After World Cafe, the students started to prepare their final presentations for the next day.  Based on what they had experienced throughout the week, they talked and decided how to present, how to divide into groups, what kind of topics they would present, etc.
They came up with the idea to present what they will do after the camp in five groups with the following themes;

1. Our choices change world (campaign)
2. Talking with others
3. Simple things to do
4. We are one (how to keep in touch)
5. For near future

The teacher’s program was a presentation on “Public Policy Questions for Sustainability” by Mr. Suzuki and Mr. Matsuura of Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Tokyo, followed by a discussion by all of the teachers in the afternoon.

 7.27 (Sun)  Day 6 <Final presentation and Closing ceremony>

We looked back to our week with a slide show of pictures taken throughout the camp by the Thai team.  After that, the final group presentations took place.  Each group had a handmade poster that they worked hard on making the night before or early this morning…  Each student took part in presentations using the posters.  The students looked so confident and sure of what they will be doing for a sustainable future after the camp. After the presentation, there was closing message from Kobkarn-san, chairperson of Toshiba Thai Foundation.

In the afternoon, the students went out sightseeing in Tokyo with Japanese students as their tour guides and had so much of fun!  At night, we had a farewell party, enjoyed the final Open Space which we would miss so much until late at night.

 7.28 (Mon)  Final day

A week felt as though it would be a long time but the week has now ended and the camp is over…   In the early morning, participants from Thailand and the U.S. left on a bus for Narita airport as Japanese participants waved good-bye.  Everyone is now bringing home warm memories from the camp.