The Nature Observation Gatherings Opening up to the Community

The Keio Shiki Senior High School has been holding biannual Nature Observation Gatherings aimed at the local residents every May and September since 2007. This May was the 16th such event, and the last seven and a half years has seen about 920 participants. Questionnaires from previous participants show that over half are residents of the local towns of Shiki, Asaka and Niiza—and judging from the fact that more than 20% had joined in before—this event has become a local fixture.

The Nature Observation Gatherings originated after searching for a way to share the rich natural environment that surrounds the school grounds with the community, and to cooperate and initiate interaction with the local community. When we started, we looked at a municipal natural history museum in the Tokyo Metropolitan area which held a nature observation gathering and appealed in their local city publications for about 20 participants, and based on this model, the opening notice of our nature observation gathering was published in Shiki City publications. At the same time, it was advertised on the web and on external bulletin boards at the school gates. Now, it has turned into an event unique to our school in which parents, graduates, and others who learned about this event through word of mouth all participate.

The gathering is an observation trip where, over the course of about two hours, they walk through an area of land of more than 10 hectares which contains more than 600 species of plants, and 20 species of birds are known to be found there. They also observe the edge (the cliff-line) of the Musashino Plateau, the giant alluvial fan formed by the Tama River, as well as the remains of the Nobidome water system.

Faculty and staff members guide the participants, centered around the teacher who specializes in biology. Also, about twenty volunteers from the 3rd year biology class are in charge of giving explanations of the plants they come across. Every year we hold lectures; in spring we have the lecture titled If I See An Unfamiliar Plant, How Can I Find Out About It? and every fall the lecture is titled Let's Try to Classify Acorns, which has proved to be a big hit among the children.

This event would not have been possible without the students, graduates, teachers and staff of Keio Shiki Senior High School, and of course the location of the school itself. Our aim is to be a school that is open to the local community, and we are expecting a lot of participants for the Nature Observation Gathering this fall.