Regional Development through Food and Environmental Education at the Farm for Biodiversity Observation in“ Daisen Obako”

As a field work in the class of introductory seminarfor regional studies, we participated with one of thegroups of undergraduate students in the activitiesat the Farm for Biodiversity Observation in“ DaisenObako”, which were organized by the society for thespecially cultivated rice “Omagari Hanabi Mai”. Thesociety intended to develop a bland power of therice and the activities were composed of food andenvironmental education for the local elementaryschool children through on-the-job training inagricultural industry. The student group establishedthree purposes as follows（; 1）to investigate theessential qualities of “Omagari Hanabi Mai” and theFarm for Biodiversity Observation in“ Daisen Obako”by hearing survey,（2）to understand the meaningof the real activities through participating in them,and（3）to support the oversea marketing of therice, particularly the sale to China market. Throughthese active learning, we obtained useful resultssuch as a finding that the rice“ Omagari Hanabi Mai”was rate high by Chinese consumers. Furthermore,the undergraduate students were able to learn thatvarious inventive ideas are necessary for regionaldevelopment from the local residents as a result oftheir efforts