My Region and My School

My Region and My School

 
Waseda University Senior High School is located in the north-west part of the Tokyo metropolitan.  More than 710,000 residents are living in the area of 48.16 km². Nerima ward is one of densely populated areas, about 14,000/km², in Tokyo. (Density of Bangkok is 5801/km², 3300/km² of Warsaw, 10630-/km² of New York)
While Nerima was very famous for the production of Nerima daikon radish that was mainly served for pickling a few decades ago, it provides 40% of cabbage grown in Tokyo now. However in Nerima, there are only 87 full-time farmers and about 350 farmers with side jobs.
Most of residents go to work to the center of Tokyo by very crowded commuter trains every day. It takes 20 minutes from Nerima to Shinjuku or Ikebukuro, the center of Tokyo, by train.

We are very proud of our city, because crime rates are the lowest of all wards in Tokyo. We have another thing to be proud of, that is Nerima is the city of animation, so-called “Manga”. Many famous animations were produced here in Nerima. About 100 offices planning and producing animations are settled in Nerima in the present days.
It is another special feature of Nerima that people living there are very enthusiastic about preserving nature, recycling garbage and teaching children the environmental issues.

There are three institutes of recycling and communication in Nerima which are very effective for educating not only children but also adults how to recycle and preserve nature. In addition to that, some people are trying very hard to restore the beautiful stream of a tiny river and to revitalize the environment for butterflies that flattered the city of Nerima before many houses were built. Some residents are trying to keep their buildings’ roofs green by planting trees and grasses so that bees are able to live and collect honey from the gardens on the roofs.

There are some beautiful parks in Nerima, one of which is near my school, called Shakujii park. Many neighbors used to take a walk around the pond and to sit down under the trees to have lunch. We can breathe fresh air and feel the preciousness of nature.
Waseda University senior High School is one of affiliated schools of Waseda University and 1800 boys, only boys, are studying there.

Students can enter the university without taking entrance examination so that they have enough spare time to make contribution to the neighborhood, for example to preserve nature with neighbors. Students established one club named “Environmental Project” 12 years ago and have been acting with neighbors to clean up neighborhood and so on. After the devastating accident of Fukushima No.1 nuclear plant, they have been measuring the radiation in the school area. My school is 200km far from Fukushima so that the radiation level is fortunately low and decreasing day by day.

We are now striving to cut electricity consumption by 15% in order to avoid shortage of electricity and the terrible blackout.

We have to use fans instead of air conditioners and towns have become darker than ever from conserving energy, but we get accustomed to that situation and we have already decided that we have to make more energy efficient society.