School turf movement in Japan

School turf movement in Japan may be unique compared to the other countries.
Case studies of school turf were conducted to collect special examples to promoting school turf.
School turf in Japan had been very few until 2000. After 2000, school turf has been increasing.
This movement may have been affected by the launch of a professional football league in 1993 and FIFA world cup Korea/Japan in 2002. National and local governments made budget to construct school turf in this era.
But the budget for turf maintenance has been low.
There occurred a movement that school children, parents and local residents plant turfgrasses and maintain the turf grounds by themselves.
One of the reasons was to maintain school turf by low budget.
But the movement produced more valuable effects.
The school children love turfgrounds which are maintained by themselves.
Many parents have visited school to help turf ground maintenance.
As a result, the communication between children and their parents, among families, between parents and teachers developed wonderfully.
Furthermore, the family members and neighbors have gained various skills.
They have planned special events by making use of their talents and turf ground.
There, families found many special entertainments according to the character of each school.
For example, various sports events, Japanese tea ceremony, traditional Japanese storytelling, watching movies after sunset and so on.
These events are done on the turf ground.
Making paper from mowed leaves of turfgrasses was devised by the author and students.
This program has been adopted by some elementary schools.
The schoolchildren make paper from clipped leaves after mowing turf ground by themselves.
This program further motivates children’s interest in turf.
Thus cultivating turf ground is now producing the turf culture in Japan.

XXX International Horticultural Congress IHC2018: VII Conference on Landscape and Urban Horticulture, IV Conference on Turfgrass Management and Science for Sports Fields and II Symposium on Mechanization, Precision Horticulture, and Robotics

K. Fujisaki

turf, school, ground, citizen participation, school children

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2020.1279.27