A large group of pupils at Yanagawa Primary School in Tokyo’s Koto Ward has gathered in the school li-

brary for a lesson. Suddenly their voices rise in astonishment.

“It’s clean now!”“Amazing!”

As a coagulant is added to a beaker of dirty water and stirred, the impurities in the water sink to the bottom, leaving the liquid clear.

Today sixty-one fourth graders are taking part in an outreach lesson pro-vided by the Tokyo Metropol itan Government Bureau of Waterworks.

Two instructors from the Bureau use video images and quiz problems to in-troduce students to various aspects of the water supply, including the role of dams, the technology for purifying water and ways to conserve water in the home. In the final experiment, students handle materials actually used at water

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At Yanagawa Primary School in Tokyo’s Koto Ward, fourth-grade pupils add a coagulant to dirty water to clean it.

2014 is the final year of the UN’s Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD), a global effort to raise public awareness of and wider participation in so-called education for sustainable development (ESD). In advance of November’s World Conference on ESD in Okayama and Nagoya, we report on Japan’s efforts at home and abroad to promote sustainable development through education, training and other means.

Learning to Live Sustainably

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purification plants in order to learn about the water purifica-tion system. Divided into five groups, all of the students par-ticipated in the ex-periment, with one student in each group in charge of adding the coagulant to the beaker and another in charge of stirring it up.

“ T h i s l e s s o n relates to Education f o r S u s t a i n a b l e Development,” says s c h o o l p r i n c ip a l Tejima Toshio. “By

deepening their understanding of the water supply, children can go on to devel-op an interest in environmental issues.”

Yanagawa Primary School is one of the UNESCO Associated Schools en-gaged in pract icing Education for Sustainable Development. UNESCO Associated Schools were created in 1953 in order to achieve the UNESCO ideals of international peace and the com-mon welfare of mankind as set forth in the UNESCO Constitution. Presently there are more than 9,900 UNESCO Associated Schools in 180 countries. Including Yanagawa Primary School, some 705 kindergartens, elementary, secondary schools and universities par-ticipate in Japan (see box).

O n e o f t h e r o l e s U N E S C O Associated Schools play is putting ESD into practice. In a word, ESD is educa-tion aimed at nurturing people who will take on the burden of building a sustain-able society. The world is now grappling with a diversity of problems relating to the environment, human rights, poverty, peace, development and other issues. If humanity is to create a sustainable society, people are needed who will see these problems as their own and work to solve them.

The Japanese school curriculum already included education relating to the environment, human rights, peace and related issues even before the con-cept of ESD was known. But the intro-duction of the concept of ESD has brought about significant changes in the methods of learning and teaching about these same topics.

“ESD emphasizes direct experience, such as going out and listening to people or taking part in certain activities. In this way, children can understand how they are connected with people, society and the natural environment,” says Principal Tejima. “Based on such expe-riences, children gain a direct under-standing of these issues, which they study and give presentations on. The role of the teacher is to spark their inter-est in learning rather than simply teach-ing them what to think by rote.”

ESD covers a wide variety of top-ics, so an integrated approach is essen-tial. Within the curriculum of subjects

taught throughout the year, such as Japanese, science and social studies, the teachers at Yanagawa Primary School have designated lessons relating to four perspectives, namely environ-mental education, international cooper-ation, understanding different cultures, and education for human rights and life. These four core perspectives are color-coded on the curriculum calendar called the “ESD Calendar.” Topics taught within the different subjects are correspondingly colored and connected by lines across the curriculum calendar whenever they relate to the four core perspectives. This process enhances teacher awareness of ESD and makes it possible to provide education that brings all these components together. The school also has a “period for inte-grated studies” allocated to ESD (see box p. 8). The above outreach lessons presented by the Tokyo Bureau of Waterworks, for example, are conduct-ed during the period for integrated studies. Other activities conducted during the period for integrated studies include teaching sixth graders about the how things were during the Edo pe-riod (1603–1867) in the neighborhoods where they live, teaching fifth graders about food self-sufficiency ratios for Japan and other countries, and teaching universal design to fourth graders.

“ESD is not something we do just at school,” says Principal Tejima. “If we’re to build a sustainable society, it’s impor-tant to teach it with the involvement of

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UNESCO Associated SchoolsIn order to implement the principles set forth in the UNESCO Constitution in schools, UNESCO in 1953 established the UNESCO Associated Schools Project Network (ASPnet), an international network of schools engaged in comparative study of ways to promote international understanding education in Member States. ASPnet initially began with thirty-three schools participating in fifteen countries, including Japan, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway and Pakistan. That number included six schools in Japan. UNESCO Associated Schools emphasize four themes, namely world concerns and the role of the United Nations system, Education for Sustainable Development, peace and human rights, and intercultural learn-ing. Schools able to participate in ASPnet include kindergartens and nursery, elementary and secondary schools, teacher training institutions, technical schools and vocational schools. After a school applies to join as a UNESCO Associated School and receives approval, there are no legally binding obligations, but the school is expected to engage in activities regarding the above four themes on a regular basis. The UNESCO General Conference in 2007 adopted a resolution on the utilization of UNESCO Associated Schools for the promotion of ESD. The role which UNESCO Associated Schools are to play in putting ESD into practice is therefore important. Once a school joins as a UNESCO Associated School, it has more op-portunities for exchanges with other UNESCO Associated Schools inside the country and abroad and can obtain the latest information and related materials for ESD.

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parents and the community. Parents pay attention to things their children are re-ally concerned about. It’s the kids that change the adults.”

Yanagawa Primary School holds a “Yanagawa Festival” once each year to provide a forum for this purpose. The festival provides an opportunity for parents and people from the community to see and experience presentations and displays which the children make in the gymnasium and the classrooms. At a festival one year, the fifth graders gave a presentation on the theme of environ-mentally friendly cooking and eating habits which families can follow. As a preliminary step to making the presen-tation, the children surveyed parents on what they were mindful of when cook-ing at home. The parents admitted that they weren’t very mindful at all about the environment when cooking. Having learned in their classes all about such problems as food waste, fair trade, and food mileage (which quantifies the burden which food transport puts on the environment), the children were astonished at the results of the survey. They came to feel an urgent need to pass on their learning to these grown-ups with so little understanding of the environment. The result was that they worked all the harder to develop highly creative and effective presentations.

The ESD effor ts at Yanagawa Elementary School have been attracting attention. The many visitors to the school have included not just observers from other schools in Japan but many from overseas as well, including college representatives from Sweden, UNESCO Associated School representatives from countries such as Indonesia and China, and teachers from South Korea.

“Since they began their ESD stud-ies, the children have become proactive about things and have improved their ability to communicate. There’s no more bullying either. Maybe it’s be-cause the lessons are fun, so they’ve lost interest in such insipid things,” says Principal Tejima. “You don’t need to be a UNESCO Associated School in order to engage in ESD. I’ll certainly do what I can to help other schools throughout Japan provide their pupils with ESD.”

The History of ESD

The concept of sustainable development (SD) was first taken up in a 1987 report entitled “Our Common Future” released b y t h e Wo r l d C o m m i s s i o n o n Environment and Development chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland, then prime minister of Norway. Since then it has rapidly spread throughout the world. Sustainable development also became the main theme of the United Nations Con ference on Envi ron ment a nd Development (the Global Summit) held in Rio de Janei ro in 1992. In the “Agenda 21” action plan adopted at the Conference, member states highlighted

the importance and the guiding princi-ples for ESD. This was followed by the a d o p t io n o f t h e D e c l a r a t io n o f Thessaloniki at the 1997 International Conference on Environment and Society held in Greece (the Thessa lon ik i Conference), after which ESD became more widely known internationally.

The Japanese government then pro-posed a United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) at the World Summit on Susta inable Development held in South Africa in 2002 (the Johannesburg Summit) , and the United Nat ions General Assembly that same year unani-mously adopted a resolution designating

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A sixth-grade pupil at Yanagawa Primary School makes a presentation about environmental problems in front of fellow pupils, parents and members of the local community. Held annually in January, Yanagawa Festival is an opportunity for the pupils to show what they have learned in their integrated studies lessons and present and share their knowledge with each other.

Period for Integrated StudiesThe “Period for Integrated Studies” was adopted into the Japanese primary and secondary school curriculum in a staged process from 2000. The aim of the peri-od for integrated studies is to train people who will be able to thrive in this age by instilling in them qualities and capabilities that will enable them to identify prob-lems by themselves, to learn and think on their own, to judge independently and find the appropriate solutions to these problems. Each school can pursue these educational activities over a broad scope of subjects including international under-standing, the environment or social welfare based on an integrated, overall ap-proach which is suited to student interests and concerns while adapting to the unique characteristics of the local area, the school, and the children or students.

the ten-year period beginning in 2005 as DESD.

Having been designated as the in-stitution charged with implementing DESD, UNESCO in 2005 drafted the International Implementation Scheme, which has become one of the interna-tional guidelines for ESD. Countries around the world now carry out their E S D p r o g r a m s b a s e d o n t h i s International Implementation Scheme in accordance with their own educa-tional systems.

I n U N E S C O’s I n t e r n a t io n a l Implementation Scheme, ESD is defined as something which “pre-pares people of all walks of life to plan for, cope with, and find solutions for issues that threaten the sustainability of our planet.” It also clearly states that, “Education for Sustainable Development is based on ideals and principles that underlie sustainability, such as intergenerational equity, gender equ ity, socia l tolerance, poverty allevi-a t ion , env i ron menta l preservation and restora-t ion, natural resource conservation, and just and peaceable societies.”

DESD has provided an opportunity to popu-larize ESD throughout the world, although it stil l has a way to go,” says Motomura Hiroaki, Assistant Director-General for International Affairs of Minist ry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and Assistant Secretary-Genera l of the Japanese Nat ional Commissions for UNESCO. “In that effort, though, you could fairly say that Japan is one of the countries most ener-getically engaged in promoting ESD.”

After DESD was adopted by the United Nations at Japan’s initiative, the Japanese government in 2006 assembled a National Action Plan clarifying the guiding pr inciples for ESD in the schools, communities, the home and the workplace. In the case of school educa-tion, for example, the Japanese govern-

ment took two major steps. First, the government clearly highlighted ESD as one of the important educational princi-ples in Japan in the Basic Plan for the Promotion of Education formulated in 2008 and 2013. In the guideline for the Course of Study revised in 2008 and 2009 for use in schools up through the high-school level, the ESD concept was further clarified in specific lesson con-texts such as the preservation of the en-vironment, peace and development of the international community, and respect for tradition and culture. (The guideline for the Course of Study represent criteria

which MEXT follows in stipulating the curriculum for Japanese schools.)

Hav i ng ea r m a rke d U N E SCO Associated Schools as vehicles to pro-mote ESD, MEXT is providing support aimed at boosting their numbers. The Inter-University Network to Support the UNESCO Associated Schools Project, which includes eighteen member univer-sities, provides support to schools in their membership applications and ac-tivities as UNESCO Associated Schools and helps them network with other UNESCO Associated Schools in Japan and overseas.

One local government particularly enthusiastic about ESD is the Tama City Government within metropolitan Tokyo.

All twenty-seven public primary and secondary schools in the city a re UNESCO Associated Schools pursuing ESD with the participation of local busi-ness firms and NPOs. Minamitsurumaki Elementary School, for example, has partnered with NPOs in an exchange project in which the Japanese children use the period for integrated studies to make joint paintings on a single canvas with two other elementary schools over-seas, one in Pakistan and one in Canada.

“MEXT doesn’t dictate the specif-i c c o n t e n t o f E S D ,” e x p l a i n s Motomura. “That is something each

school does in accor-dance with their own in-genuity. What we want to do is make good ESD practices widely known and in that way support its popularization.”

S i n c e 2 0 0 5 , t h e Japanese government has contributed funding to the Japanese Funds-in-Trust for Education for Sustainable Development at UNESCO with a view to supporting the interna-tional popularity of ESD. Va r ious p roje c t s a r e being pursued with the suppor t of the Funds. The Tokyo-based Asia-Pacific Cultural Center for UNESCO (ACCU), for example, has a project ca l led t he ESD R ice Project. The theme of the

Project is rice, which is consumed wide-ly throughout Asia and which forms a subject of study and exchange for UNESCO Associated Schools partici-pating in the Project. Presently partici-pating in the Project are some nineteen schools in six countries, including China, Republic of Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia and India. Pupils can experience rice cultivation and learn about the culture surrounding rice.

Support from the Funds is being used for efforts in a wide variety of fields, including promotion of ESD in countries around the world, holding of workshops and meetings for human re-sources development and preparation of publications.

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Basic Outline of ESD Themes

Source: MEXT

UNESCO World Conference on ESD

As the nation which proposed DESD, Japan has steadfastly led ESD efforts at home and abroad during that time in co-operation with UNESCO. Believing also that UNESCO and the international community should continue promoting ESD even after the end of DESD, the Japanese government proposed that the World Conference be held in Japan in the final year of DESD. The General Conference of U N ESCO and the General Assembly of the United Nations then adopted resolutions accepting Japan’s proposal.

Accordingly, the UNESCO World Conference on ESD will be held in Japan this year. The UNESCO World Conference on ESD will comprise Stakeholder Meet ings held in the Okayama Prefecture city of Okayama followed by the World Conference held in the Aichi Prefecture city of Nagoya.

The UNESCO ASPnet International ESD Events for Students and Teachers will be held in Okayama from 6 through 8 November as a Stakeholder Meeting, and will include theASPnet Platform for Students and the ASPnet Platform for Teachers, followed by Japan’s National Conference on UNESCO ASPnet. Participants in the ASPnet Platform for Students will include 170 or more high s ch o o l s t u d e n t s f r om U N E SC O Associated Schools in thirty-four coun-

tries, including Japan. In the ASPnet Platform for Students, the high school student participants will conduct the meeting and discussions themselves, giving presentations on ESD activities in their schools and holding talks on future ESD efforts. In the ASPnet Platform for Teachers, participants wil l discuss subjects such as the role teachers should play in promoting ESD following the end of DESD. The Japan’s Nat iona l Conference on UNESCO ASPnet will then be held on 8 November. This sixth Conference will be at-

tended by representatives of UNESCO Associated Schools throughout Japan. In addition to sharing their ESD efforts, participants will draft a declaration. The city of Okayama on 7 November will h o s t t h e U N E S C O E S D Yo u t h Conference attended by about fifty ESD enthusiasts aged eighteen to thirty-five and between 4 and 7 November will host the Global RCE (Regional Centres of Expertise on ESD) Conference with over 300 participants from ESD centres in over a hundred regions all over the world, including Okayama City itself.

The World Conference to be held in Nagoya between 10 and 12 November will be attended by ministerial-level rep-resentatives of Japan and other participat-ing countries as well as representatives from international organizations and NGOs totaling over a thousand people. Participants will report on the outcome of their activities during DESD and hold discussions on plans for 2015 and there-after. As a follow-up program to DESD, a Global Action Programme on ESD (GAP) will be officially launched to further ESD efforts from 2015 and after.

“Priority action areas in the Global Action Programme include policy sup-port integrating ESD into government policy, whole-institution approaches to ESD, strengthening the capacity of edu-cators in ESD, supporting youth in their role in ESD, and support for local com-munities in ESD,” says Motomura. “The

World Conference on ESD will probably become a new starting point for ESD.”

Constructing Defenses of Peace

The UNESCO Associated Schools in Japan participating in the UNESCO ASPnet International ESD Events for Students and Teachers will hold events to welcome the students and teachers from overseas UNESCO Associated Schools participating in the International Forum. Preparations are now underway in com-munities throughout Japan.

“Yaren Soran!”In late June, out of an audio player

set in the judo dojo of Ichikawa Senior High School in the Chiba Prefecture city of Ichikawa comes the melody of a tradi-tional Japanese folksong called the Soran Bushi. About twenty senior high school students gathered in the dojo move vigor-ously as they dance along with the music.

Gathered here today are students from ten UNESCO Associated Schools in Chiba Prefecture. The UNESCO Associated Schools of Chiba Prefecture on 4 November will host a welcome party for about twenty students and teachers of the four nations of India, Namibia, New Zealand and Vietnam who wi l l be pa r t ic ipat ing in t he UNESCO ASPnet International ESD Events for Students and Teachers. The Japanese students will perform the Soran Bushi on that occasion.

After about an hour practicing the Soran Bushi, the students discuss prepa-rations for the welcome party. The plan is to provide the students and teachers from the four countries with the chance to ex-perience uniquely Japanese things, such as wearing traditional Japanese yukata, writing calligraphy, or eating sushi. In the preparatory discussions, groups in charge of different activities each report on their progress and problem points and identify issues to be decided on by their next round of preparations.

“Students from various schools will think and act together to entertain the overseas guests. This could also be de-scribed as a kind of ESD,” says Oikawa Shuji, Vice Principal at Ichikawa Senior High School. “ESD broadens the stu-dents’ outlook. It’s important for schools to give the students a variety of oppor-tunities. Those opportunities then help

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Students from Ichikawa Junior and Senior High Schools with their tutors on the campus of Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. Students from the Ichikawa schools attend English classes at Cambridge and Oxford Universities every summer.

them to grow.”Ichikawa Senior High School has

1,320 students and was founded in 1948, although Ichikawa Junior High School was founded in 1937. Together with the junior high, the senior high school be-came a UNESCO Associated School in October of 2012. The schools’ ESD themes are education for international understanding, science education and environmental education. It is making a special effort in science education. Its high level of science education is recog-nized, and it is designated as a “Super Science High School” (SSH) by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). The SSH system supports high schools engaged in advanced science and math-ematics education with a view to foster-

ing top-flight, world-class scient ists and engineers. The students choose research topics f rom f ields such as physics, chemistry, bi-ology and mathematics and polish their skills by making experiments and presentations while pursuing their studies.

Ichikawa Senior High School is also en-gaged in international exchanges through sci-

ence. Students in July of last year visited the Princess Chulabhorn Science High School Chonburi in Thailand, gave presentations on the subjects of their re-search and carried out joint studies relat-ing to soil organisms with Thai students.

In addition to its exchanges with Thailand, Ichikawa Senior High School deepens the international understand-ing of its students in other ways, as by conducting international exchanges through language study in the United Kingdom and New Zealand and by ad-mitting overseas students.

“The UNESCO Constitution says, ‘it is in the minds of men that the de-fenses of peace must be constructed,’” says Onuki Eriko, a second year student at Ichikawa Senior High School. “Surely ESD is exactly that, building defenses of

peace in people’s hearts.”Onuki at the end of March this year

took part in the ESD International Exchange Program which the National Federation of UNESCO Associations in Japan provides for students of UNESCO Associated Schools. Together with four-teen other Japanese high school students, Onuki visited UNESCO Associated Schools in Germany and France to observe how ESD is practiced in each of the schools there. At UNESCO Associated Schools in Germany, for instance, students cooked food using solar-powered cooking equipment and put on performances using recycled plastic containers as musical instru-ments. Onuki says she was particularly impressed by the way so many of the students had embraced ESD thinking.

She and the German and French high school students whom she became friends with through the program keep in touch through Facebook and other social networking services.

“In the future, I want to increase my chances of getting to know people over-seas,” says Onuki. “My future dream is to contribute to peace for humankind through science. In cooperation with people overseas, I’d like to engage in research that will be useful in treating incurable diseases.”

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At Ichikawa Senior High School, students conduct an experiment concerning falling objects. Ichikawa Senior High is a UNESCO Associated School which has education for international understanding, science education and environmental education as its three ESD themes.

Onuki Eriko speaks at Ichikawa Senior High School to senior high school students from ten Chiba Prefecture UNESCO Associated

Schools about her experiences in the ESD International Exchange Program. Ichikawa Senior High is a MEXT-designated “Super

Science High School.”

SAWAJI Osamu, The Japan Journal