Kids' green diary projectby Nanami Nishihara | 09-03-2017 22:12 |
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Green diary project for kids called "Midori no Komichi (Green Lane)"(http://www.midorinokomichi.net/) started in 1998 by Green Cross Japan. In this project Green Cross Japan has been distributing free diary books for elementary school students. Students write things related to environmental problems in their diaries for 12 weeks and submit them for a contest. This project aims to make children know the importance of environmental problems and make them do green activities to solve these problems. Since 1998, 1375266 diaries were distributed to children, and 85138 participants submitted their diaries to the contest. Today, many local governments and local educational committees in Japan are participating in this project. Also, this project has been conducted in Sri Lanka with Green Cross Sri Lanka since 2005. This year, 7000 children in Sri Lanka are participating in this project. I participated this project when I was 11 and won third prize in the contest. It was wonderful experience. During this 12 weeks, I was thinking about environmental solutions every day and doing something green to write on this diary. Not only me but also my parents, brother and grandparents became to concern environmental problems since I had participated in this project. Although I hadn't known much about environmental problems before I participated in this project, I learned many things in this 12 weeks. For example, I visited Science Museum to know about climate change and local recycle station to know recycle system. I also conducted a recycle project with my class mates. We collected plastic bottles' caps and brought them to the recycle station. My family became to turn off lights earlier and enjoy candle night. My grandparents became to select recycle products. A friend of mine was inspired by this project and he is studying agriculture to be a farmer to create environmental conscious agricultural system. For me, this project taught me the importance of environmental issues and that's why I'm concerning environmental problems now. Green Cross Japan's staff said "I'm sure the quality of our diaries has been improved year by year. We hope many children will be inspired by this diary and take action to solve environmental problems."
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