Tamaho Elementary School is located in the city of Gotenba, Shizuoka Prefecture, at the foot of Mt. Fuji. Surrounded by lush greenery, the school encourages its students to come up with their own ideas about how they can lead a more Earth-friendly lifestyle. The approximately 660 children at the school have set up forums like the Natural Science Committee and Recycling Committee to carry out a variety of conservation projects.

One of the Natural Science Committee's activities is collecting fallen leaves and turning them into compost. Most of the students involved are in grades four to six; they collect the leaves on their way to and from school. The compost is used as fertilizer for the flower beds on the school grounds. Thanks to this effort, more than 10,000 scarlet sages, marigolds, and other flowers bloom each summer.

The Recycling Committee, meanwhile, collects aluminum cans and milk cartons. Some 600 kilograms of aluminum cans are gathered each year and sold to recycling companies. The proceeds are used for various school activities. In April 1999 the committee began organizing collections of the cartons of milk served with school lunch. After finishing their meal, students in grades two to six clean and dry the cartons to make recycling easier. The volume of paper cartons collected should total about 1 ton at the end of the program's first full year. The cartons are being sold to paper makers in the city and recycled as toilet paper.

Besides these committee activities, the kids at Tamaho Elementary School organize a number of events that get people to think about recycling and protecting the environment. They also participate in projects sponsored by the local community, distributing leaflets to raise awareness about the environment among adults.

School Principal Masaharu Sugiyama has been very enthusiastic about carrying on and expanding these activities since coming to Tamaho in April 1998. One of the things that he and the students agreed to in their discussions has been to try to become a model "eco-school" pursuing Earth-friendly activities. As a first step, power-generating equipment using clean energy sources like the wind (300 watts) and sun (55 watts) were installed on the school's roof in the fall of 1998. The generators were paid for with the approximately 300,000 yen raised from the sale of aluminum cans and PTA-sponsored bazaars. The electricity they generate will be used to power the lamps needed for security and in the garden. Models showing how the energy of the wind and sun are harnessed to produce electricity will also be built for use in science classes.

The school felt it had to do more to deserve the title of an "eco-school." So an appeal was made through the student body newsletter, asking everyone to send in suggestions. The student body officers--all of them in sixth grade--compiled the ideas that were turned in and drew up a nine-point Environment Declaration in late February 1999. The Declaration contains pledges to pay more attention to activities that could have an impact on the environment, such as using erasers, pencils, paper and other supplies with more care, not littering and picking up the litter left by others, not leaving water running unused, and turning off lights when no one is in the room.

"We drew up the Declaration with the hope that younger students will continue and build on our initiative after we graduate," commented student president Yoshiaki Nakamine.

"Even small things are important, like sorting the trash properly for separate collection," Yosuke Takamura, another sixth grader, said.

An Eco-School Committee was created in April at the beginning of the 1999 school year. It set targets like increasing the volume of aluminum cans collected by 5% and conserving 5% more on water, electricity, and paper. It also decided to turn the 330-square-meter pond on the west side of the school building into a biotope--a small zone occupied by a community of organisms living near their natural state. This will mean covering the concrete pond and small stream feeding into it with earth and stones and planting broad-leaf trees so insects and fish can live there. A kind of shellfish that young fireflies feed on was also released into the pond in the hope of attracting the insects.

The principal, Mr. Sugiyama, says that he hopes the kids learn the importance of treating things with care from a young age. "By teaching them about the environment while they are still children, they'll hopefully grow up to take a more responsible attitude toward the environment as adults," he comments. Tamaho will aim to become the first elementary school to receive certification for complying with ISO 14001, an international environmental standard that is usually followed by companies.


Photos: (From top) Students get the recycling spirit; a meeting of the Recycling Comittee; recording the naturally generated electricity for the day; posing by the biotope. (Tamaho Elementary School)