We held an online workshop for children to make accessories using marine plastic!

Hello, this is Abiru from AHORA.

For the past few months, I've been holed up in Tsushima, trying out various things using marine plastic.
In fact, in March of this year, I received a call from Yumechu College ,

I will be teaching three workshops as a lecturer.
*Thank you so much to Tacchan from Yumechu College for giving us this opportunity!

Therefore, for children who are not attending school,
We held an online workshop to make accessories using marine plastic.

I have done offline workshops before.
It was my first time conducting an online workshop, so I was quite nervous.

Since I can't actually teach them,
How can we communicate online?

Will it be finished in time?

There were a lot of uncertainties...

But in the end it was a lot of fun,
Above all, the children had fun making it,
On the other hand, I learned a lot from the kids.

Children's reactions to the workshop

This time, we held workshops on the Metaverse with small groups of around 2-3 people per session.

It's only a short time, from 12 noon to 1pm,
I'll talk about the beauty of Tsushima's nature for the first five minutes.
The remaining time was spent on production.

I was surprised at the workshop right away.
Everyone was pretty engrossed in their creations.

When I'm creating, I get quite absorbed in thinking about what kind of pattern to use and what colors to use.

Some children continued creating until the time was up, and some even tried to make another one.

When I create something, I feel like I'm back in my childhood and lose track of time.
Sometimes 3-4 hours have passed before I realize it lol

I shared a video with the kids in advance showing them how to make it,
If you teach them the basics without having to start from scratch,
The children then spontaneously thought about how to make it, so
I thought it was a really good time.

At any time, children will ask questions about the production,
Some of the questions asked included, "Why did you start upcycling marine plastic?"
I received a question from an elementary school student that got to the heart of the matter.

It makes me so happy when kids ask me questions like this.

I got carried away and ended up talking too much...

The future of environmental education

This was my first opportunity to come into contact with children's education, and I made many discoveries.

Even children who have stopped going to school can start again if adults provide some kind of opportunity.
I was able to find something to immerse myself in,
I felt that it could also give them one option for the future.

When today's children become adults,
When I think about the many paths I will choose to walk from now on,
It is not just school teachers who educate,
Adults who are not usually involved in education but are actively involved in social activities should have more contact with children,
If we can create opportunities for students to spend time seeing, hearing, and feeling things that they would not normally be able to experience in their normal school life,
I thought that this would give children more options.

In this workshop,
How do we view the current marine plastic problem as part of environmental education?
I think it also gave them an opportunity to think about how they should act.

Thank you for your participation!

That's all for this time!