April 14th, 2020 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm, Round Table Com, Inc. International Learning Program Research Committee and SDGs Point Labo @ Japan held the 1st “Don’t Stop the Earth! -SDGs Meeting for Everyone” at Zoom.
As a part of the “Don’t Stop Learning!” project by the volunteer PTA alliance, this project was launched in collaboration with the PTA to provide children with school closures with something they couldn’t normally learn at school.
The project attempts to provide various contents such as programming, English and Japanese culture to children throughout the country including Tokyo by using online conferencing systems ZOOM and YouTube, collaborating with scholars and celebrities nationwide through the Internet.
In our program, we encourage children, parents, and educators involved in learning SDGs to take such opportunities to learn, think, and exchange their opinions online. We planned a SDGs meeting for everyone!
In spite of the short notice, 4 elementary school students, 2 parents, elementary school teachers from Tokushima prefecture and NPO representatives from Yamanashi prefecture participated.
The first theme was “Why SDGs now?”
- SOS from the earth! (What are SDGs?)
- SDGs and governments, companies, regions and schools (introduction of initiatives)
- Discussion (SDGs around you)
From Tokushima Prefecture, we learned about initiatives to eliminate food waste at Takashi Elementary School, and from Yamanashi Prefecture about Oshinomura Children’s Eco Club “Kids College SAKUYA”. An elementary school student from Itabashi Ward said, “At my school, I recycle and sort garbage (burnable/unburnable).”
The children who participated say, “I’m surprised that the world is unexpectedly poor.” “It was a little difficult but it was fun.”
There were also opinions that “local children and urban children need to cooperate with each other,” as each of them has its own problems.
From the next time, we would like to set a theme and focus on it so that more children can participate. It will be held once or twice more in April, and we would like to continue this activity even after the school closures are over. We will announce the schedule and theme next time on our website, so please look forward to it!
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